I wanted to share an experience we had last week with the health service here in Copenhagen. I am often surprised to hear that people have a negative view of the this aspect of life here, when we have had nothing but great experiences.

I rarely share too much about my son here but I think I will make an exception this time. He is prone to having fever seizures when he gets a fast spike in temperature and he had his first one on Danish soil last weekend. It was not as severe as the previous one but frightening nevertheless. We called the ambulance which arrived in minutes, during the wait I was put on the line with a doctor to give us support whilst we waited. The ambulance staff were kind, efficient and friendly and once they had established nothing life threatening was occurring, we were taken to Rigshospital and straight to the children’s ward bypassing the emergency room.

The point of this post is really to sing the praises of the hospital. As my son had vomited we were put into isolation to protect other children from possible infections and when we left the room we had to wear disposable gowns. This was all explained in a lovely manner by the experienced nurse, who also made my son (and us) very comfortable. Nothing was presented in a way to scare him and he was the focus.

I went to the kitchen/dining room where there was an amazing selection of foods we could help ourselves to. We had missed booking an evening meal as we were admitted too late in the day (there is a supplement for this) but there were delicious sounding microwave meals available for us if we had needed to stay the night. Nothing was too much trouble for the staff in this room. But the most interesting aspect of food on the ward was what the nurse told us, after giving my son one of his favourite ice lollies, that they want the children to be happy and to eat. So if they want pancakes for breakfast they can, if they want an ice lolly there are freezers full for the taking, plus all the comfort foods Danish children love such as leverpostej and meatballs for the evening meal. There was an amazing salad (photo below). Their philosophy is that children need to eat to get better and if it is food they love then they will. I have to say from my experiences on adult wards, both maternity and regular, that philosophy isn’t limited to the children’s wards.

We were lucky enough to go home that evening. In the rush to leave our apartment, we hadn’t got socks or shoes for my son and a pair of hospital issue socks magically appeared and the nurse even apologised that we had to pay for our own taxi home.

Going to hospital in an ambulance with a four year old is not an experience any parent wants but I am thankful this happened here.

I would love to hear about your experiences too.