MCHN Helpline (VIC)

[Fi]

Hi All,

We had some screaming baby issues last night, and I decided to call the MCHN helpline at about 2am. Well by 2:30am I still hadn't talked to anyone, and decided to hang up.
Has anyone ever got through to these people? What was your average wait-time?
Its my second time calling in the middle of the night, and both times I was on hold for longer than what I consider to be a reasonable amount of time. My biggest beef is - normally parents are already at their limit when they dial the number, so why should it take so long for them to answer? Jenna had been screaming hysterically (like almost the worst I've ever seen) for about an hour already, so it seemed crazy to wait so long.

Does anyone have any other midnight help solutions? Has anyone rang the nurses helpline thats currently being advertised? I think the number is 1300 60 60 24.

I'm tempted to complain about this to someone - but I'm not sure who, so I'd love to hear other peoples experiences.

Fiona
PS - Not a whimper out of her this morning of course - pesky child!!!

[Danni]

awww thats horrible fi!

i have called the nurses helpline before. They were good but they takes ages to take your name, dob, address etc etc before they even take your problem.

i hope someone has some better advice for you

[mum5boyz]

I've called the MCHN before - I think it was around 9 or 10 pm and the phone was never answered. I would have given the new nurses helpline a go.
How's Jenna now??? Hope she's feeling better and calmer.

[BellyBelly]

I have called them before late at night, it was just after we got out of sleep school - we actually called the sleep school first but were told, 'We're busy, you'll have to call back tomorrow.' How great that is for a mum in distress I tell you... so we called the MCHN line and yes it was busy. I should have hung up though, as all they told me was it was perfectly fine for my child to cry for two hours straight and that was it. That was the night we stopped taking everyone's advice and co-slept - there was no support or worthwhile advice out there for us.

[~Raven~]

It's been a few years bit it seems nothing has changed. I remember waiting on the line for 45 mins once.

[nikbrad]

We called the first night we we home from the hospital with Mackenzie - it was about 1am and waited for nearly 2 hours. I also rang about 3 months ago in the middle of the day and waited 45 minutes. When I got thru they were very helpful and in no rush to get me off the phone - which was great as I had a heap of questions but this would explain why it takes soooo long to get thru.

[Pandora]

I have called the 24hr MCHN number a few times and have waited an average of 40mins.

I was put through to the nurse on call line, the 13 60 60 24 number, by the hospital's emerg. dept last week, and spoke to someone within 2 minutes.

[Ambah]

We have been discussing that new Nurse call/help line in our classes at uni.
A few people have tried it, and no one is very happy with it, as if there is even the slightest chance that anything is wrong they advise you to go to the Emergency room anyway (yet arent they meant to be reducing the amount of ppl in the emergency rooms?). I can understand why they do that though, because of the fear of litigation. Its also not very effective because its relying on people to tell them what is wrong, and people often omit important details that they think aren't necessary... thus the nurse really needs to see the patient to be able to diagnose properly.
I once called the RCH to speak to a nurse about Aidyns allergy, and the nurses said they werent allowed to give me any info/advice over the phone due to legal reasons... so I wonder how that nurse call line could be any different?

[Gemma]

I phoned it once but it was in the middle of the day and got straight thru.

[Astrid]

I have called twice, once on the weekend and once late at night. It took about 20 minutes to get through each time. My cordless phone nearly ran out of juice waiting.