Dr. Rita Doyle:

I think I had a bit of a light bulb moment about that recently. We never made any planning for the feminisation of medicine. When I went through training I was in a class of 120 and there were only 18 women, so it was not feminised. Now it is nigh on equal with about 48% women and 52% men. I do not think that any plans were made for the fact that women have children. The stage at which they are just finishing their higher specialist training or their general practice training is often the time when they have children. No allowance is made for that. No extra allowance is made for people who are going to take maternity leave. The workload falls on the people who are there. Mothers have to pick up their children from crèches. I hear senior consultants saying, "where is that one gone, she is gone to pick up her children?" Of course she is gone to pick up her children, she is a mother, what else would she do? There are no allowances for the feminisation of general practice. That needs to be looked at. There should be supernumerary interns, senior house officers, SHOs, and registrars at every level so that when somebody goes on maternity leave or her child gets sick or whatever, there is somebody to step in and the workload is not doubled on her co-intern or her co-SHO.