Riding at anchor

Start of the second week at the new locum. An odd day. Nothing to do initially. Then I had to drive across the Harbour Bridge, back to the central city for a meeting. 

This locum is with the maternal mental health team; which shorn of the euphemisms means helping women with what was once called post natal psychosis. Ever since a tragedy which happened 40 years ago, Auckland has not provided inpatient care for such women except in the standard inpatient units, which means they had to be separated from their babies. Not the preferred model of care.

One of the members of my peer group (now an ex member as she has fully retired) spent almost all the years when she had the permanent position in which I am doing a locum, actively promoting the development of an inpatient mothers and babies unit. After she retired, the powers that be (by which I really mean those who decide what gets spent on what) agreed to develop such a unit. For a city of 1.4 million, with responsibility for at least half as many people again for tertiary services, they have generously bizarrely funded three beds. Three beds means a lot of time spent in managing the most efficient and effective use of those beds.

Afterwards, I spent the rest of my day (due to cancellations) reading papers connected with this job. And being struck yet again how little has been published about 50% of the population (actually, I think it's more like 51%) and the changes they experience cyclically as well as before during and after childbirth.