Raining men.

So, typical time off; back one day and it doesn't feel like I've been away. Mind, having a week off in the pouring rain in SA didn't feel like I was away. From Scotland that is. But seeing the most amazing wildlife (hippos, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, zebras and not-deer) more than made up for it.
But now I'm back in Ingwa and as I sat in the blazing sun having lunch, it all seemed a distant memory.
Have come back to our merry band of 10 doctors (a mere 11,000 patients each) being down to 9 (a brief calculator use later and that's 12,222.2 each now. Doesn't seem that different really). With no sign of any replacement. Actually, there is sign of a replacement (a girl who used to work here who wants to come back for a few months) but they're not sure if there's funding. I'm sure it's more complicated than it sounds but surely if we needed 10 and were paying 10, we still do and can? But that's why I'm not in management.
The plus side of the reduced numbers is that it has opened up a ward of my very own. The male ward. I'm really looking forward to getting to know the staff well and making small changes to improve the running of the ward. Today's suggestion was that maybe we should put all the sick patients in one area of the ward, near the nurses station and that I should see them first on the ward round... Baby steps.
You have to bear in mind that this is the ward that last week managed to tell a family that the relative that they had come to visit had died.
When he'd actually been transferred to another ward.
This only came to light when the family came back on the Friday to collect the death certificate in readiness for the funeral they had arranged for Saturday. And now the poor guy is still with us for fear that if he'd gone home over the weekend, they'd have freaked and thought he was some sort of spirit.
This certainly isn't something I've faced before.