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S3 E3 Prof Bill Ledger - The gap in clinical care
122 Plays11 days ago
Reflecting on a distinguished career at the forefront of reproductive medicine, Professor Bill Ledger—former Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick—has witnessed a profound cultural shift. Early in his career, the grief of early pregnancy loss was routinely pushed into the shadows. Today, while he acknowledges a welcome, hard-won openness in public conversation, Bill remains fiercely realistic about a critical gap: how this public openness translates into frontline clinical practice.
In this powerful episode, Prof Bill Ledger joins Sam to discuss why institutional healthcare settings still too often default to clinical detachment, leaving vulnerable families to navigate reproductive trauma wrapped in cold, sterile language. He shares the definitive moment of connection when he met Pink Elephants co-founder Sam, and why he pioneered a new approach to professional development by inviting her lived experience directly into the lecture halls of his senior medical and midwifery staff.
Key Takeaways from This Episode:
- Breaking the Silence: Bill’s reflections on moving away from a time when pregnancy loss was shrouded in societal discomfort to an era where families find the courage to speak their babies' names.
- The Structural Gap in Care: Why medical compliance isn't enough, and how clinical settings can unintentionally isolate families using detached or abrasive language.
- Textbooks vs. Lived Experience: Inside Bill’s decision to bridge the gap between clinical excellence and deep human empathy by bringing Sam’s voice directly to his senior obstetricians and gynaecologists.
- Compassionate language: Bill’s vision for the next decade—formalising soft communication skills across the Australian healthcare system so that medical responses shift seamlessly from clinical management to an intuitive circle of support.
Help us Celebrate 10 Years & Donate: Help us show up for the next decade. Your donation ensures we can continue providing a circle of support for families who experience early pregnancy loss.. Donate here
EARLY PREGNANCY LOSS SUPPORT
If you or someone you know has experienced miscarriage or early pregnancy loss, please know you are not alone. Connect with our services:
- Live Chat with Peer Support
- Online Communities
- Pregnancy Loss helpline delivered by PANDA
- Circle of support
- Follow @pinkelephantssupport on Instagram.
- For crisis support, please call Lifeline - 13 11 14.
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Transcript
Introduction of Professor William Ledger
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome back to season three of the Miscarriage Rebellion. Today we have the wonderful Professor William Ledger, or Bill as I know you now. Bill has been a long time supporter of Pink Elephants from the very early days. and one of the things that we're doing with this series is taking a moment in time to stop and to reflect on those that have made a difference to Pink Elephants that have showed up for us so that we can show up for you, our community, who are grieving the loss of their baby or are facing fertility challenges and need a support organisation like Pink Elephants.
Origins of Pink Elephants Charity
00:00:38
Speaker
I hope you'll hear today from Bill's experience with Pink Elephants, just how profound this first meeting I had with Bill was for us. Welcome, Bill. Thank you. Good to be here. Awesome. Really, really excited to have you here.
00:00:51
Speaker
I think I will literally go back to 2017, very early days of Pink Elephants. We'd just been registered as a charity. We'd just built the website.
00:01:01
Speaker
We had the resources and we were now working out, well, how could women find us? How could we build some referral pathways from hospitals? And at that time, you were the head of OBS and GYNS at the Royal Hospital for Women within Sydney here in Randwick. That was my local hospital where I went through all of my experiences, all of my babies. And yeah, I reached out and I said, can I have a meeting? I want to talk about this thing that we're building and what we're doing. And you were gracious enough to accept that.
00:01:31
Speaker
Sure, it's amazing it's almost 10 years ago. and know. The time has flown past.
Addressing Miscarriage Support Gaps
00:01:36
Speaker
and By that time I'd been working in Australia for seven years and was the professor of ONG at UNSW and as you say the head at the Royal Hospital for Women.
00:01:51
Speaker
Royal Hospital for Women has a big EPAS, Early Pregnancy Advisory Service. yeah And it looks after anything up to 10 or 12 women every single day who are bleeding in early pregnancy, maybe having miscarriage and all of the follow on from that.
00:02:07
Speaker
And I'd been impressed by the clinical quality of what we were doing there. It was fairly quick, which is important, and accessible and free.
00:02:18
Speaker
But the problem was that it was a clinical service in the acute setting. So someone would come, ah, we've done the scan, we've done the blood test, really sorry, pregnancy's not progressing.
00:02:30
Speaker
We'll organise the DNC or we'll do the medical management, and after that, goodbye. Yeah. And that hurt. And because I was normally in charge of it, I felt from my sort of lofty position that really there was a big gap.
00:02:47
Speaker
Because I know from my own experience and I know from experience of over 30 years in acute gynaecology that there's a huge hurt and people need support and follow up and often long term help to get over a disaster. Yeah.
00:03:04
Speaker
And our problem in medicine is because we see those disasters ten times every day, you become, i don't know, just a bit immune to the tragedy because if you don't, you can't actually do your work. You you can't share the deep hurt with every single person. yeah know You have to go home at night and get on
Significance of Collaboration with Professor Ledger
00:03:22
Speaker
with things. and So i think I was kind of in a very receptive frame of mind when you came to see me, totally out of the blue. Who are these people? What's this about? You did a presentation, which was really good, and it just struck a chord. And I think something happened between us in that meeting where we're just on the same wavelength. Yeah.
00:03:42
Speaker
And no, I was more than happy to put my shoulder behind the project. It was early. it yeah was struggling for funding. It needed to just have the opportunities to be known about. And it just went from there to where you are today. And can I say to you, I'm super proud to have just done a little bit, you know, just with a little bit of leverage to have helped it make what it is. No, it's it's a real achievement.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I want everyone to hear how huge that was for us in
Creating Impactful Services for Miscarriage
00:04:12
Speaker
that moment. There was Gabby and i I. finally got Gabby on the podcast. She's going to be on another episode. That's taken three series to get to convince her.
00:04:21
Speaker
And it was the very early days where we knew we'd created something that women wanted. We knew that it would make a difference. We had been holding focus groups. We'd been testing. They all built the presentation we brought to you. It wasn't just about mine and Gabby's experience. This was from the beginning about founding something that could make a profound impact to those who need it most. And so to come and to sit with you, the head of OBS and Gynes at one of the largest tertiary hospitals, was really, really confronting and hard. You were amazing. I think you were a bit shaky for the first two or three minutes. And then you realised that actually the dragon didn't breathe fire. No, you were a normal person. And it was fine.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, there was a fear. A normal person that really... I liked what you had to offer. yeah i could I could see just from my own experience that that there was a big gap that this was going to fill. And I just almost from day one felt, yeah, this has a really good chance of being successful. And you've found so many different areas where you can help people from that that first concept. It just blossomed.
Evolving Awareness and Support for Miscarriage
00:05:25
Speaker
and And I still know, i mean, I run mostly a fertility practice. yeah I see a lot of miscarriage. And everybody I see gets your web link and I send them along. And I couldn't be prouder that we've had that we can do that now, that there is somewhere to send these women and their families now and say, hey, this is not something you have to deal with on your own. It's not isolation. Yes, it is common, but we know it's your baby. Like, here's where you go. Here's where support. And what kind of difference does that make? Well, I was going to say, if you go back further, when I was, i don't know, a trainee or a new consultant, if a woman had a miscarriage, it wasn't spoken of. Mm-hmm.
00:06:04
Speaker
No, I mean, go back to when I was a young doctor. If a woman had a miscarriage, it wasn't talked about. Even within the family, it wasn't spoken of. And it was very much something that was seen as she was to blame. Yes. You know, you did something wrong. And i don't know, the guilt and the the sense of distress and disaster that that caused was awful. Mm-hmm.
00:06:28
Speaker
And we saw it as doctors yeah because often we were the only people that these folks could talk to. And it wasn't an unusual thing. It was almost universal. Oh, no, we don't talk about that sort of thing. And thankfully, in our time, the lid has come off. People can discuss these things. yeah They can talk about their endometriosis, their perimenopause, their PCOS, their infertility, their miscarriage problems, their pregnancy problems, honestly and openly.
00:06:55
Speaker
So we've come a long way in terms of being able to share women's health and talk about the experience and we're seeing that society is moving from it's common, it's nature's way, at least it happened early. It's not quite there yet. We still know many women who hear those like feedback today and that's not okay.
00:07:15
Speaker
But you've seen a big change yeah in the time that you've been in this space. Yeah.
Influence of Women in Medicine on Women's Health
00:07:20
Speaker
um Maybe in two two places. Firstly, I think the medical profession are much, much better. um A lot more doctors are women these days. That's a big change in my time. And that's been so helpful when you know asking doctors to deal with problems in women's health in the broader spectrum, because these are people that live that experience. And that's been a big thing.
00:07:48
Speaker
But also the fact that in society people are now free to talk about their experience. I don't think there is a stigma. yeah People understand that the miscarriage is a biological thing. It's not because you did something naughty in your life. And all of that, I think, is disappearing quite fast. yeah So there's an openness now. And when someone has been through the disaster, they can be sympathy and some compassion. And people understand more. Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I think the language is changing as well. You know, thank heaven. And I almost regret mentioning this. Yeah. But when someone in my time when I was young had a miscarriage that that didn't complete it was called a missed abortion. Yeah.
00:08:31
Speaker
And I think we've got rid of that language now. I hope you don't hear it around the country. No. And it just is one little piece of evidence about how things have changed for the better. A hundred percent. And there was things like spontaneous abortion. And labelling it the same. And it isn't the same. just wrong. you know yeah um And it wasn't in people were not being but malicious. They just didn't think. And by raising awareness, the work that you've done is making people think more and be more respectful and careful in how they use language and how they react to people.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, and I think language is one area and I do see that's changing and i'm I'm really hopeful that the awareness raising around that.
Challenges in Miscarriage Care Settings
00:09:12
Speaker
But it brings me also to think about the experience of a woman in a hospital yeah and how important it is we consider the settings that that woman is in. So things like we know within some rural and regional settings, they might have less space for want of a better word, but we still hear of women waking up on maternity wards. Yeah. After the loss of her baby.
00:09:30
Speaker
And we still hear of women waiting in waiting rooms with other women that are heavily pregnant. Yeah. And that's kind incredibly confronting. That, I think, is one of the biggest problems.
00:09:41
Speaker
And the problem is just underfunding of the public hospital system. Yeah. across every state, and it is state-based, but I don't think there's any examples where it's done well, not because people don't want to do it, and not because there are really good examples around the world of how it can be done better, but even at Royal Hospital for Women, we don't have the resource to make it as comfortable and as appropriate as it could be. and And it's a constant fight for funding, as as you know from Europe, trying to get to where you are now. yeah and
00:10:16
Speaker
Some funds have become available. We're doing better with endometriosis at the moment. Menopause at the moment is better funded. But... There's still a ah big gap in the, just like you say, the structure, the environment, you know, and plenty of examples of how you can make ah an early pregnancy assessment service really smooth and separate. Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
And ah gentle. Yeah, which you have done at the Royal. but that We do our best. Yeah. It's good, but my word, with a better environment, put the concrete in different places, it could be better. Yes, definitely. they' Still kind of going past the baby shops and that yes i know that area, right? And I understand the funding restriction. I truly do. And we've championed for a long time, but we'll continue to push and agitate there. And it will change, but the raising awareness is a big part of it, right?
Development of Fertility Services
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, we can see that. Tell me about your work with the IVF clinic that you worked on, because I think it's phenomenal. oh im It is interesting moving to a totally new health system and a new hospital, which I did in back in 2010, 2011.
00:11:25
Speaker
Because you kind of parachute into something that's been going a long time. And as an outsider, you see gaps that maybe the people that have worked within it for all of their lives don't perceive.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I come to Sydney from... working in and NHS, National Health Service, in Sheffield in the UK, which as you know is a working class city, yes not with a lot of money, but with some of the nicest people in the world. yeah And I was able in Sheffield to put an IVF service into the big public hospital. And it took a lot of effort and 10 years. But when I left, it was functional and running well. I get to Royal Hospital of Women in Sydney, which again is a public hospital trying to serve the needs of everybody.
00:12:09
Speaker
And not everybody in eastern suburbs of Sydney has a lot of money. There's a lot of people. There's a disparity, right? huge disparity. People on low income who are just as entitled to have a family as people on high income.
00:12:21
Speaker
Maybe it's a bit naughty to say this, but I often think that the people on low income make better parents than the ones on high income. They sometimes have more time with their children, but let's not worry too much. yeah And there was no facility.
00:12:32
Speaker
There was very good IVF in Sydney and across Australia for people who could afford it. yes And Medicare made it affordable for for people on a medium income, say.
00:12:44
Speaker
But the public hospital had everything else trying to cover all the needs of women's health except no IVF. Yeah. And I started to ask, you know, why don't we have IVF? know This is something that I know how to do and I've seen it work really well. Oh, well, we don't think we really need it. You know, the private sector picks it up.
00:13:03
Speaker
So anyway, it seemed to me there was a gap. Mm-hmm. And the other thing that came along, which was a huge need, was this whole new specialty of oncofertility, because the cancer doctors in the developed countries like Australia are helping young people with cancer survive long-term in big numbers. yes If your youngster gets a leukemia or lymphoma or solid tumour, heaven forbid, but if they do, in 2026, their chance of long-term survival and long-term health is pretty good. yeah
00:13:33
Speaker
Which wasn't the case even 30 years ago. Chemotherapy, the radiotherapy, destroys fertility. In boys, in girls, young men, young women, it just is totally causing them to be totally infertile.
00:13:47
Speaker
So the idea came out of Europe, why aren't we freezing eggs or sperm for these youngsters before they have their chemo? Because yes, they're a person with cancer, but and the reproductive system still works. And then they've got a fallback in the future. And thankfully, that got a lot of leverage.
00:14:05
Speaker
Politicians like it. Brad Hazard was the health minister in in in the old government yeah yeah in New South Wales. Lovely man. He's a grandfather and he got it straight away. yeah And again, with a lot of help from a lot of people, we managed to fundraise and build what we've called the Fertility Research Centre at the Royal Hospital for Women.
00:14:25
Speaker
um We ended up getting nominally about eight million from government in New South Wales to make it happen. Incredible. Well, it is a bit incredible. but Then, of course, Victoria, being Victoria, gave about 60 million to the people there. little bit competition. So now the Royal Women's um in in Melbourne has a splendid service, which is bigger than ours, but ours is still pretty good.
00:14:46
Speaker
I know that Brisbane are starting to to run an oncofertility and the other states will be looking because it was a real unmet need. Yeah. Yeah. Coming from that, we built the IVF thing specifically to try and do egg and embryo freezing and sperm freezing for these young folks with cancer. But then we could help people with infertility and we could help people with genetic problems that can be treated in in these ways. And at low cost and in the public sector where a lot of people feel more comfortable.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yes. Not everybody likes the kind of, you know, glamorous, you know, you feel like you're in ah an Oxford Street fashion shop yeah sometimes. Yeah. People like the healthcare to come out of a hospital sometimes. Yeah, yeah, totally. There's reassurance. It has been a success. 100%. I also know people, i I won't name them, but I know people that have welcomed babies thanks to your work there. And that's not something small. That's huge, profound. They have a baby because of the work that you did there.
Psychological Impact of Miscarriage
00:15:44
Speaker
I love it. i'm I want to also talk about you've practiced for 30 years and you've seen all of these experiences from loss to IVF and yet miscarriage is often kind of viewed as something that happens as a moment in time. yeah it's just It's an early loss, so therefore you should only grieve for this amount of time. But as an obs and gyn, what did you see from our community when they were pregnant again after loss?
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, that's a very good question because I don't think most people who've experienced a miscarriage ever recover completely. you It's like any bereavement. you you know We've all lost people who we love. Yes. And you function, you work, you carry on with life. Of course you do. And life can be lived and enjoyed, but there's always a small part of you that misses them.
00:16:41
Speaker
And I don't think the loss is... fundamentally different, whether it's losing an adult relative or losing someone who was going to become part of your family and never made it. I think the hurt stays. Yeah.
00:16:54
Speaker
And we're learning that more and we're making it an honest and acceptable thing for people to carry and we help them. Yeah, absolutely. That I think has been one of the big changes, like you say, over the past few years is that now is accepted whereas in the past it wasn't.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. There was this pervasive acceptance that it happened early, therefore you get over it quickly. Get over it quickly. But what we see is women and their partners with huge amount of anxiety carrying through a subsequent pregnancy. yeah Things like future scans, things like all those milestones. Oh, no.
00:17:28
Speaker
The whole pregnancy experience is in no way joyous because the expectation something's going to go wrong is there. Well... You have to be careful of dad jokes at my age, but one of the things I say to people quite a lot is, you're going to worry about this child until he gets into uni. Yeah.
00:17:44
Speaker
They do. It's different when you've had the loss. And, you know, you cherish, everybody cherishes their children, but you cherish that child, sometimes over-cherish them because they're so important and so special.
00:17:57
Speaker
And people reference back to, oh, yeah, you'd have had an older brother or sister who was two years older than you, and it didn't happen. And that doesn't go away. Yeah. Yeah. My um four year old still very much sleeps in my bed, pretty much on my head. And I remember how generous you were really during COVID and you were the one that gave me the scan, the early dating scan for him. I was so nervous. i was terrified. I didn't trust anyone. I wouldn't go anywhere. yeah And you gave me so much empathy and you knew what I did as well. So there was an element of that for me that was a concern that I didn't want to just walk in and everyone know. And
00:18:35
Speaker
You were really accommodating and you used those words to me. you're You're going to worry about this child until she's in university. And yeah, I can confirm that's 100% true. Because I do. And that's the humanity of people, you know. and And it's it makes the bond stronger.
00:18:53
Speaker
I think it's it's not a bad thing or a good thing, it's just a thing. yeah And it's part of the life that we all lead.
Community Support and Sharing Stories
00:19:01
Speaker
You know it, so many people experience miscarriage. It's such a common thing.
00:19:06
Speaker
So the emotional thing that we're talking about is universal. Everybody's been there and everybody has their own story and their own story to And that's Pink Elephant's growth and success has been a huge part of because there was a real need and we tapped into that.
00:19:22
Speaker
and then deliver the support that they deserved all along. And if this had had been done 10 years earlier, it would have grown then. So I think there's a huge part there. I think that's around like the narrative, the shifts in language, the shifts in hospital systems.
00:19:36
Speaker
I also, maybe it's worthwhile having a little bit of a chat around like we now potentially can start to understand more about why miscarriages happen through genetics in the future and there's also now i'm very wary of this because there's no magic pill there is no magic fix people need to hear that but there is more discussions around things like progesterone oh yeah and like 10 years ago no you don't need that no now yep so i don't know you want to talk a little bit from a medical perspective
00:20:06
Speaker
I still think there's a ways to
Research into Causes and Prevention of Miscarriage
00:20:08
Speaker
go. Huge. Yes, if if the woman is older when she becomes pregnant, the chance of a genetic problem is greater.
00:20:17
Speaker
And so the majority of miscarriages in the older age group, at least we can explain. Another thing that's changed over the last two decades, we now almost routinely test the chromosomes of a miscarried pregnancy. So that person knows, can know at least why it went wrong. And I think that's really comforting that, you know, A, there was a genetic cause. It's not something that you did. And B, it's not recurrent. no's It's just a sporadic accident of nature, which isn't going to happen again. But that's still only the minority of miscarriages for most young women who are pregnant in their 20s and early 30s.
00:20:57
Speaker
And it's very difficult even now to put a finger on the the reason why those pregnancies are lost if the genetics are normal. Yes. And the flip side of checking the genetics is when the report is normal,
00:21:10
Speaker
I have a heart sink moment because I'm not going to give her or him as the partner an explanation. So that's a problem. Progesterone, yes, there are big clinical trials now. There's a good evidence base that says that if you've lost pregnancy before and you have bleeding in the current pregnancy, progesterone can help. Yeah.
00:21:32
Speaker
but it's not Harry Potter magic. No, and we need to hear that, right? I know. Every pregnant woman does not need to use progesterone. Yes. it's It's not helpful and it's just using medicine when medicine's not necessary.
00:21:44
Speaker
And we try hard to educate our GPs because they're often the first point of contact and something like an e-pass will know how this works. So if you're eligible for progesterone, if it will help, you'll get it.
00:21:58
Speaker
And there's a big push to get it onto the PBS, so it'll be very cheap to do. But the problem there is it might be become over-prescribed, I don't think people like doing vaginal progesterone. It's unpleasant and uncomfortable and irritating. Of course, if it will help avoid a miscarriage, people will stand on their head and whistle Dixie for six hours at a time Yeah, I mean, I didn't wear high heels for nine months because an acupuncturist told me that that would tilt my pelvis and I'd lose the baby.
00:22:28
Speaker
I would never, ever do that now. But after two back-to-back losses, i know that was my mindset. You listen to everything. Yes. And there's a lot out there. One of the problems that you're helpful with, because you know your service is evidence-based and and gives good advice, there's so much poor advice out there. If people go to AI or go to Google, it's going to tell you all kinds of weird stuff, like not wearing high heels for nine months. It's amazing the species survived through the 60s and 70s, isn't it Yeah, it really is. the case yeah and
00:22:58
Speaker
So, no, progesterone, yes, is is helpful for some, but you really do have to be careful who uses it. And annoyingly, and from a medical perspective, it is annoying that we can't give a good answer to most people who lose a baby like that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:15
Speaker
But I do think it'll change. I think that because the pervasive acceptance and that era of telling women it's common, it's genetics, it happens, it's kind of dying yeah in a really great way. That what I'm seeing is a trend towards government also funding more research in this space. yeah And then it starts there because then we have the strong data and the evidence that says, hey, this is what's needed here. yeah I know that I'm really excited by a number of projects at the moment that are happening and there might be long term. We might be looking at 10, 15 years before that change, but you have to start somewhere, right?
00:23:45
Speaker
We have to kind of do that now. I mean, I've had a great career as a clinical academic. I've done some you know fairly pleasing bits of research that have in some ways made a difference. I wish I was starting there. I really do because the the scientific tools, the tech that we have, is just magnificent. And know I go back to when i started and the people teaching me to do medical research were at the top, the people I worked with. And I was always very impressed, but quite quickly you sort of moved further along the track than they were able to to keep up with. And I'm the same now.
00:24:24
Speaker
People beginning to really, I know we all go back to it, but AI is just making such a huge difference. And you'll take the databases of of national databases from well-run miscarriage services, feed it all into an AI, and it will pause and it'll eat the power from New York for three minutes. And then it'll come out with an answer and it will change things. And that will happen within a decade. 100%.
00:24:47
Speaker
one hundred percent Yeah. It will. It will. I can tell you what it won't be. What won't it be? Lifestyle. m If we could do one thing, it's persuading people that they don't have to enter a nunnery or a monastery in order to have a healthy baby.
Misconceptions about Miscarriage and Lifestyle
00:25:01
Speaker
Because I think people are taking it too far these days. yeah And yes, be healthy. Of course, that's wise in in all kinds of ways.
00:25:09
Speaker
But in a way, being overly paranoid about health is as harmful as not caring at all. Yeah. And I often like, I can use my own experience here and I don't share this part publicly very often, but when I'd had two back-to-back losses and at that point you weren't eligible for testing yeah because two wasn't defined as recurrent. And so I went down the naturopath route and I like as much as I got healthy, but I became very obsessed with what I would eat, what I couldn't eat. It became very restrictive. yeah
00:25:41
Speaker
And yes, I then went on and I had a healthy baby and However, i then went on had another loss. And then I had an another baby, Rosie, the scan. And I didn't follow the same protocol for Rosie. And I'm one person, right? So that's not an evidence base at all.
00:25:56
Speaker
But I do know just personally and from stories I hear from other women as well that that restrictive nature, that could have ended in a really dangerous place. yeah And it wasn't a magic pill. But I'm going back to a moment in time when you are so vulnerable, to my point earlier about the heels, that I was willing to do anything just to carry a baby to term and have that baby in
Pink Elephants' Role in Support and Advocacy
00:26:17
Speaker
my arms. yeah And I think it's really important that organizations like Pink Elephants are evidence-based and don't provide health promotion information because that's not our role. We are the after, the early intervention support because otherwise there is too many people and it's too dangerous a narrative. yeah If this magic thing will be the thing... I know if only you'd done this and it hurts people. Yeah. And so much of it doesn't have a good evidence base. And most of the things that you see on TikTok or Instagram are just, I don't know, people fantasizing about what might help. And then people take it really seriously. Misinformation, right? Yeah. 100%. No. So if anyone's listening today and they've been through their own experience or they're in the trenches now, what's the advice?
00:27:04
Speaker
Be aware that you're not alone. Hmm. sharing when there's a big emotional burden I think is almost always a good thing and be aware that there are compassionate and smart people who were there to help because they felt it and they didn't like it and they didn't have much help yeah so I think you know a burden shared is a burden halved and I really do think in this context Sam it's it's really good advice if you're If you're not sleeping, if you're worrying about this 24 hours a day, if your relationship is suffering, if your partner or your mom and dad are worrying about you because you're not mentally healthy, come on, in our time, people are not going to suffer in silence. And that has to be an improvement on the way things were in the past.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. And I can't think of a better way to close. That you're not alone, that you should reach out for support. And there is support for you. Exactly. Thank you so much. That's been a pleasure. That was amazing. Thank you.