Rough start to the day
Martin Turner
Editor, Medicus
There is an understandable focus on the AMA (WA)’s new president Dr Kyle Hoath being the youngest in the history of the AMA (WA). That takes us back to 1962, when the British Medical Association Branches formally merged into the AMA.
He is also just the second psychiatrist president of the AMA (WA). Prof Paul Skerritt was the first psychiatrist president (2004-2005) of the AMA (WA) and the second, if one includes the Western Australian Branch of the BMA.
Dr Sydney Montgomery was the president in 1910 and had the title of Inspector General of the Insane. Montgomery supervised the closure of Fremantle Asylum and transfer of patients to the new Claremont Hospital for the Insane, now Graylands Hospital. According to Dr BC Cohen in A History of Medicine in Western Australia (1965): “He was progressive in his management. Prize shorthorn milch cattle, and Tamworth and Berkshire pigs were bred there. The Asylum inmates gained many awards at the Royal Show.”
Well over 100 years later, in fact in recent weeks, I observed a person with obvious mental health issues at close quarters, and the encounter has stayed with me. This person got on the bus I was travelling on, and it took some small time for their presence to come into focus, as one steadfastly protects whatever privacy the public sphere affords in crowded public transport. I realised the youngish woman was talking quite animatedly, but clearly with no other person involved. I noticed the back of her jacket was covered in pine needles, and the jacket was taped tight around the waist. As it was a cold morning, all I could surmise was that the tape was a way to prevent the cold creeping under her clothing while she slept rough.
I exchanged glances with the elderly lady who sat next to me, and we spoke about what we were witnessing, aware of attempting to maintain the dignity of someone standing a metre or so away, who appeared to be inhabiting a totally different world from whatever one calls the one I was sharing with my neighbour.
Having a president with a mental health specialty will undoubtedly give this aspect of the health space a greater emphasis over the next two years. Each one of us is touched in some way by the impact of mental health – be it our own, a family member, loved one, friend or colleague. Or just another citizen on the bus, whose circumstances suggested was crying out for a range of services to bring her back from the place she was forced to inhabit.