Victorian parents will no longer need to wait until they reach the emergency room of the Royal Children's Hospital to know the kind of wait to expect before their children are seen, thanks to a new online tracker.
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The state government says the tracker, now available on a website, rates activity at the emergency department from normal to extremely busy at all times of day.
It's aimed at helping parents decide whether to take their sick children to a GP, their local hospital or the children's hospital emergency department, where patients with less serious cases can face long delays.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the website was a "commonsense policy" that would remind parents that the Royal Children's was not the only hospital in Melbourne that could provide first-class paediatric care.
The real-time data that will be available on the website will allow parents to assess if there is a hospital closer to home or that is less busy and where there child might be seen sooner than at the Royal Children's.
"There's nothing more stressful than than having a sick child, an injured child and not quite knowing where the best place and fastest place to take them is," Mr Andrews said.
"The Emergency department here [at Royal Children's] does get very busy, particularly in winter and there may be, through this information, an opportunity to get the care you need faster and closer to home."
Two years ago parents concerned about minor ailments drove waiting times in the hospital's emergency department to more than eight hours in some cases.
At the time the hospital said as many as 290 children a day were attending its emergency department to enter queues as long as 83 deep. A large number of the children had "cough and cold symptoms", it said.
The tracker can be accessed at www.rch.org.au/emerg_rch/status/
With AAP
