After Hour Calls

After Hours Calls

Please remember that calls after our routine office hours are for emergencies only. This would be considered any need or problem that cannot wait until normal office hours. If you do call after normal routine nurse telephone hours, your call will be answered by a nurse call center. A nurse will return your call as quickly as possible. If however, you do not receive a call back within the hour - please call again. Please understand according to our protocol, we do not call in prescriptions for antibiotics without seeing your child first.

In addition to the nurse call center, one of our physicians is always on back-up call. Should the nurse call center feel that your child needs to go to the emergency room, they will discuss this with our back-up physician on call. This service is available 24 hours per day, every day of the year.

Emergencies

For a life threatening illness or injury call 911 or take your child to the nearest emergency room. If you are not sure whether a visit to the emergency room is appropriate, please call the office and during our regular business hours one of our nurses will help you determine the appropriate place for treatment. After hours the nurse call center will provide this service.

However, if you have any doubt about the severity of the situation or if for some reason you are unable to reach our office, we encourage you to go directly to the emergency room at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital at Spectrum Health Butterworth Campus or if you are out of town, go to the emergency room nearest you.

Spectrum Health
Helen DeVos Children's Hospital
100 Michigan St. NE
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
(616) 391-9000