Dr Gabrielle Colleran

We want to deliver value for taxpayers, and how we do that is by staffing the team and using the consultant staffing we had.

What we have to do now is get those consultant numbers up so that we can provide scheduled care across the six days.

We're providing all the unscheduled care, all the emergency care, 24-7.

But when your blanket is very small, whatever way you pull it, you're going to leave some bit exposed.

Absolutely.

And unfortunately, David, the reality is that in most Model 3s and in most departments in Model 4s, without having people out on the Monday, without a replacement, that isn't possible.

In both of the hospitals I work, Temple Street and Hollow Street, I've said to my clinical director,

that I'm very happy to work Saturdays, as have my other colleagues for scheduled care.

We're already doing it for all the emergency cover.

And we've been told that until they have the radiographers and the administrators and all the other teams in place, they don't want the drop in productivity because we don't have the staffing to not lose Monday.

And that's why, David, you can see that actually the minister's position and our position are actually very similar.

What's missing is that dialogue bit in the middle so we can work out the problems together.

Yeah, I think the dispute got very polarised.

And as a non-obstetrician who works in a maternity hospital, I see how hard my obstetric colleagues work.

I also see the risk and the uncertainty that they deal with on a daily basis, because the reality is, David, that

you know, stillbirths will happen, hypoxic ischemic injury will happen, there is risk in obstetrics.

And women make the choice about what kind of care they want for their own reasons and modified by their own risk profiles.

And when I look at the maternity strategy, David, and so much work went into that great document, it proposed not only like private or public, it's far more than that.

It's about women having more access to private midwives, to domino schemes, real choice where women are supported to look at their own risk profiles

and make that decision.