Leaves caught by rocks

An unusual day, although most of what I did was fairly commonplace. The difference was some of the content of some of the meetings, which could presage a substantial review of how we provide care to those who need us. The acute inpatient unit in which I work is little different from such units elsewhere in both the city of Auckland, and in the rest of the country. 

We have a mix a people; some are those admitted later than ideal (because of a "lack of beds"), and are more unwell than perhaps they need be had we been able to intervene sooner. In the same wards are those with severe mental illness which is now chronic, responding little to treatment, and who are in hospital because there is nowhere else.

In the daily meeting about discharges and admissions, that latter group is rarely talked about because staff feel unable to discharge them. Yet what is being done to help them.

I believe there are other ways to work. I am unsure if there is any will to change the way we think of treatment of major mental illnesses. Such thoughts occupied my thinking in a number of different settings today.

Young L had to have some teeth extracted today and S was to be his chauffeur. I decided to travel down with her and spend the afternoon on Zoom in the A-Frame after doing Zoom meetings in Fidelis. A strange world we now live in. After I finished the meetings we took Young L to his home, and I took the opportunity to walk. alongside the Waimoko Stream.

This stream runs below the rear of daughter C's property, and the path through the adjacent reserve is pleasant. Shortly before the stream passes under the bridge which I used to cross the stream to return on the opposite side of the stream, I saw this short rocky portion with leaves off the many trees by the stream caught on the rocks. They will be washed away when it next rains.