A splendid display

This has been one of the most busy and tiring weeks at work in this locum. Perhaps that relates to having had relatively little time off since going back to full time work in late February. More particularly it is due to there having been a number of admissions, many of which followed pressure to discharge other patients, at times earlier than is ideal. Low nursing numbers resulted in the closure of 20% of the beds some weeks ago.

Today involved assessing a number of patients for fitness to be released from compulsory status. That involves applying a test which is legal in its structure (and implications) to people who are being seen because they have a clinical need. When talking to the patients I explain the differences between the legal decision and the clinical decisions as being like railway tracks. Two parallel lines aimed at the same end target. I fancy that this analogy does make my decisions more understandable to the patients.

Midway through the day S contacted me to see if I could leave a little early and pick up her mother from the Assessment and Diagnostic Unit n the main hospital, as she was being discharged. My colleague kindly offered to cover me leaving an hour early, I collected 96 year old mother-in-law, went to the apartment where we collected S and my weekend bag, and then headed out to battle the peak traffic heading north. Actually not too bad.

The end result was that we got here early enough to get a shot of the Alchemist rose on the fence at the beach house.