Darcy Watt, 5, was rushed to Tocumwal Hospital last Monday morning after he felt a sharp pain in his foot and saw two puncture marks while playing in the garden.
Darcy's mother, Michelle, said the Tocumwal hospital staff wanted to administer antivenom straight away, but were not certain which snake had bitten him.
“They only had the brown snake antivenom, no universal (antivenom),” she said.
“They called the ambulance, which took about an hour to get to us, and we went straight to emergency at GV Health.”
Mrs Watt said she was "shocked" that both Tocumwal Hospital and Goulburn Valley Health had to print out snake-bite procedures before treating her son.
“I was shocked that both Tocumwal and Shepparton (GV Health) hospital weren’t really on top of what to do with snake bites, they both had to print procedures first,” she said.
“No-one really knew what to do, a lot of standing at the end of the bed but not a lot of confidence, which was lucky in our case because it wasn’t serious.”
Mrs Watt said her son's initial blood tests at GV Health were normal, but doctors kept him overnight as a precaution.
Darcy was discharged the next morning after his subsequent blood tests came back normal.
While Darcy was in hospital, him uncle Jonathan Graham organised Stihl Shop Shepparton to deliver a present to cheer up his nephew.
“Buying the chainsaw was the least I could do, so I called up and saw if they could drop it off,” Mr Graham said.
“Darcy has been cutting wood with me recently — he likes to see himself as a bit of a lumberjack, so he's got that passion.”
GV Health's clinical operations executive director Donna Sherringham said only 18 out of the 40,429 presentations to GV Health's emergency department this year had been snake bites.
“Due to the low number of presentations of patients with snake bites to the Emergency Department, GV Health has in place processes that support the staff to access the latest care guidelines which ensures the treatment is adherent to the specific requirements of each case,” she said.
Tocumwal Hospital director of clinical operations Cherie Puckett said antivenom was only given if there was evidence of poisoning.
“The child showed no symptoms of having been poisoned and was carefully observed,” Ms Puckett said in a statement.
“The patient was treated in accordance with the NSW Health Snakebite and Spiderbite Clinical Management Guidelines, which contains flowcharts and checklists for the clinicians to refer to when treating and observing a person suspected of snakebite.
“Tocumwal MPS always has appropriate stock of brown and tiger snake antivenom,” she said.
