Meningitis

Lex Luthor

Monday last week, we woke up to find a rash on our 1 1/2 yr olds legs. Immediately suspected meningitis. Got the glass tumbler, applied it and it was still there. Being rush hour traffic, we decided to go to Naas hospital, 2 mins up the road.
When we got there, they had a look at him, said they couldn't treat him as they had no paedriatic unit and told us they thought it wasn't what we thought but said go to Tallaght.
By the time we got to Tallaght it was 10am. Needless, to say, they didn't offer an ambulance escort.
Our worst fears confirmed, when he was diagnosed with septecaemia. after a few hrs saving his life, he was transferred to the High Dependency unit where he was monitored for 2 days. The lumbar punture results on tue showed signs of the bacteria in the brain area.
Lucky for us he survived. He was discharged on Thurs eve but has daily visits for his IV antibiotics. We were lucky but heard a horror story on Fri about another child taken to Naas hospital the week earlier and died en route to Tallaght after being turned away from Naas from meningitis.
Please do not assume your local hospital will treat your child for meningitis. Ring now and make sure.
The rash is just one symptom but is not always obvious.
Rapid breathing, vomiting, headaches, dislike to bright lights are all but a few. If you think they have all of a sudden gotten ill, be suspicious.
I would not like anybody else to go through what we have just been through.
I hope by posting here, I have made a few people more aware. Please spread this news to all your friends/family.

Tom

Carpenter

Lex Luthor wrote:

Monday last week, we woke up to find a rash on our 1 1/2 yr olds legs. Immediately suspected meningitis. Got the glass tumbler, applied it and it was still there. Being rush hour traffic, we decided to go to Naas hospital, 2 mins up the road.
When we got there, they had a look at him, said they couldn't treat him as they had no paedriatic unit and told us they thought it wasn't what we thought but said go to Tallaght.
By the time we got to Tallaght it was 10am. Needless, to say, they didn't offer an ambulance escort.
Our worst fears confirmed, when he was diagnosed with septecaemia. after a few hrs saving his life, he was transferred to the High Dependency unit where he was monitored for 2 days. The lumbar punture results on tue showed signs of the bacteria in the brain area.
Lucky for us he survived. He was discharged on Thurs eve but has daily visits for his IV antibiotics. We were lucky but heard a horror story on Fri about another child taken to Naas hospital the week earlier and died en route to Tallaght after being turned away from Naas from meningitis.
Please do not assume your local hospital will treat your child for meningitis. Ring now and make sure.
The rash is just one symptom but is not always obvious.
Rapid breathing, vomiting, headaches, dislike to bright lights are all but a few. If you think they have all of a sudden gotten ill, be suspicious.
I would not like anybody else to go through what we have just been through.
I hope by posting here, I have made a few people more aware. Please spread this news to all your friends/family.

Tom

My god the poor little mite my heart goes out to you 2 my daughter had it age 5 and is fine now pm me if you need to talk

DrIndy

I'm very sorry to hear what happened and I hope he makes a full recovery as soon as possible.

It is a sad state of affairs that there are only certain hospitals with paediatric units in this country, but if this ever were to happen to anyone again, you must immediately go to a childrens hospital or a general hospital with a childrens unit. In dublin, they are Tallaght Hospital, Crumlin Childrens Hospital, Temple Street. Unfortunately, the other hospitals won't be able to treat children. It does no harm to check your local hospital on their status.

Like the Ad on TV says, speed is everything - and you were fast.

For further information that anyone with children must know:

http://www.meningitis.org/

and go to symptoms.

TempestSabre

Had a scare ourselves at 6 weeks. Took him to the doc after a night of high temps and change in behaviour, less active, crying more (if possible) and lisless. and were told to go to temple st straight away. Apparently theres a specific count that determines if you have it or not, and our guy was right on the borderline He got a lumbar puncture to test for it then 4-5 days later a second one. Spent the week in TempleStreet, quite sick for a week with v high temps, hovered on the border for ages but thankfully he didn't get it.

Really tough, tough week to go through.

Looking back we were most surprised that we spotted a change in behaviour in the baby so fast. Because it was our first, we thought we were clueless. Turns out parents instincts are pretty accurate. But what was also surprising was that the medical staff didn't question our instincts for second.

I dunno how people work there. Its pretty heart breaking place. Fantastic staff though.

DrIndy

No doctor would ever question a parent who says their child is off, particularily if its the mum as they know every little sign and clue about their behaviour.

Good to hear he's alright....... the work is hard, but so long as you have tried your absolute best for every patient, you can go home without a heavy heart.

wheresthebeef

Naas only takes children in severe circumstances, and then only to stabilise them and arrange transport to Tallaght usually.
We brought a 13 year old girl with a suspected spinal injury to naas by ambulance, and were told that in future not to even bother, just go straight to Tallaght.

DrIndy

Children must be treated in a paediatric A&E, you would be surprised how different paediatrics can be from medicine and only once they are over 12 do they start to become more like adult medicine (but not fully until about age 16)

Siogfinsceal

never ever go to naas hospital if its anything serious they are useless. I went in with a suspected spinal injury before and had to sit for 5 hours on a bench. I always ask to be taken directly to Tallaght now.

wheresthebeef

Siogfinsceal,
If you had a suspected spinal injury, what were you doing sitting in the first place? You should have been immobilised to a Long Backboard, and had a Cervical (NecK) Collar applied also.
A suspected spinal injury is usually a stable injury unless there are significant signs of something being wrong. Usually if the only thing that indicates spinal injury is the mechanism of the injury, then you are treated as stable and you need to be cleared by spinal X-Ray, or manual clearance by a doctor.
A&E waiting times vary depending on the time of day, the day, the time of year, and so you cannot generalise and say that a particular A&E is bad because you had to wait. A system of Triage is in place whereby the most serious patients are seen first, i know it seems unfair in some ways to make people wait and then push them back in the queue, but the day that you are the most serious patient, you will be glad then that you didn't have to wait.

DrIndy

The man above is correct. Often what happens is people with such a type of injury simply need to be checked to make sure there is no significant injury, rather than suspecting it in the first place. When I was in the rotunda A&E for a short stint, one day, it took 6 hours of waiting before they were brought in, another time at 9am, I was calling women in before they were even fully clerked in!

It just depends. Also the wait for a bed depends too. In St. James's, we have the Acute Medical Admissions Unit where acutely unwell people are fast tracked into this unit before transfer into the main hospital to stabilise them. Due to high level of training of nursing staff primarily and 3 SHO's and 1 Registrar dedicated to those two wards, people are treated fast and discharged home quicker. Waiting times in A&E have plumetted since and you are rarely longer than 24hours waiting for a bed.

Over christmas, with the cancellation of most elective surgery, there were a fleet of beds in the main hospital and A&E was a ghost town, people only waited for a medical review and then went straight up to a ward.

There are a number of factors affecting this - often it is just down to luck and timing of going to hospital.

Lex Luthor

wheresthebeef wrote:

Naas only takes children in severe circumstances, and then only to stabilise them and arrange transport to Tallaght usually.
We brought a 13 year old girl with a suspected spinal injury to naas by ambulance, and were told that in future not to even bother, just go straight to Tallaght.

You're havin a laff David....I think meningitis is the severe of severe...
They himmed & hawed...pi$$ed about for half an hour....said we had nothing to worry about, it wasn't what we thought it was, but go to Tallaght anyway, just to be safe.
Morons...
Did I forget to mention they sent us a bill for the admin costs that morning...rang them and told them to politel fcuk off and that they wouldn't be getting any money off us...told us we had to send in a letter explaining the situation and why we felt we shouldn't pay....like that happened...

Any TempestSabre, glad to hear your kids doing well....those lumbar punctures are not for the faint hearted...I couldn't go in.

Siogfinsceal

I was on a horse in my old job. Horse was kicked and ran under a tree. The branch was very thick, caught me across the neck and bent me back in half. The back of the saddle hit into my spine and my neck was whipped back . I was in agony. Got back to teh yard, could barely walk and was driven to the hospital. Had to wait at least 2 hrs to see a nurse/doctor and was x-rayed. Had to wait another 2 hours to have the xrays read and they were read using a deask lamop as the place was busy. i was sent home with distalgesic. I have been to chiropractor since who tok xrays. I have a damaged vertabrae in my neck and also damage to my lower back. Itsnot the first problem ive had with the hospital my sister went in with a bad arm one day they said they 'didnt know' if her arm was broken and cast it anyway. We brought her to tallaght instead after and they took the hard cast off and had to put on a soft one with her arm bent in the opposite direction. Thank god we brought her down