The Other Side of the World: Mar 26, 2006

Sunday, March 26, 2006

it's an honour

The other day in class, our Instructor mentioned she'd run into an Honourary midwife at a conference who wished us all the best in our beginning studies and expressed her admiration for our endeavours. That would be the Prime Minister, Helen Clark. As the story goes, Helen Clark was the Health Minister when the legislation to give Midwives autonomous practice in New Zealand was created. Thanks to her, it was passed through at 2 a.m. when most members of parliment couldn't be bothered to attend (or oppose) and she managed to slip in some key elements that give us the wonderful scope of independent practice we have today. To be fair, I would probably be livid if I heard that my government was passing bills in the middle of the night when hardly anyone was paying attention (sounds like something out of a Michael Moore movie). However, I can't help but celebrate her deviance in this case. In other happy news, we were also informed that the acceptance rate for our program this year was under 16%. Somehow essay-induced-headaches are more palatable when you've been especially chosen for them. And speaking of essays - I've written the outline and the intro and it's only 7:30 p.m. There is still hope in the world yet.