I WRITE with anger, concern and frustration over Fairfield Hospital's new A&E department.

I had the misfortune to take my two-year-old daughter there in the early hours of Saturday morning. After triage we were directed to occupied children's cubicles, and we then spent four uncomfortable hours waiting for her case to be resolved by a paediatric doctor.

For parents who have never had to visit at this sort of time, let me tell you it is no place for a child. To get through the entrance we had to pass by two drunks, one with a heavily bandaged head and face. All around the A&E waiting area and in the cubicles were drunks behaving in ways which were totally incomprehensible to children. This is a bewildering place for anyone, which is why security guards patrol the department, and it is especially frightening for a person who is ill and too young to understand.

I did not think for one minute that I would have to be seen in A&E as I had previously attended the children's medical emergency department. I was told that this department no longer exists and that it is now incorporated into A&E, evidently meaning the ill children no longer have their own nurses, doctors and waiting area but are left waiting in A&E until the paediatric doctor can see them.

A whole department has been withdrawn, quietly and seemingly without public knowledge, and has been replaced with two cubicles and no paediatric staff. I believe the hospital management avoided publicly announcing the withdrawal of the very valued children's medical emergency department because it did so against the wishes of the paediatric staff.

CONCERNED PARENT