THERE'S probably never an easy time to be the acting CEO of an operation as sprawling and diverse as the Western NSW Local Health District.
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Sitting at the top of a vast complex of hospitals and health services would require a tremendous amount of time and energy at the best of times.
But while a COVID variant sweeps across your area? That would require another level of time and energy altogether.
Mark Spittal, who took over the top job from long-term health district CEO Scott McLachlan last November, didn't betray any signs that he was starting to fray around the edges when he talked with ABC Central West this week about the Omicron outbreak.
Instead, he struck an appropriate tone for the times.
Mr Spittal was honest about the challenges facing his health district - many staff off work while they isolate at home; cases admitted to hospital putting pressure on staff, some of whom are having to work double shifts - without being alarmist.
He spoke specifically, not generally, about the number of COVID cases in hospital beds that it would take to really start to stretch his reduced workforce and even offered some cautiously optimistic predictions about how he sees this Omicron wave plateauing and then starting to peter out.
It's easy to say that our health bureaucrats have been giving us too much or not enough information (depending on who you talk to) over the past couple of years, but of course they've been faced with a tricky balancing act.
Breathless, rolling updates about the latest when it comes to COVID runs the risk of creating constant unease at best and spreading panic at worst.
Not being honest enough, or speaking only in generalities or jargon, creates a vacuum in which some will think the worst and others will just assume the problems have passed and nothing more needs to be done.
What we need now - and have needed for much of the past two years - is unemotional, honest, clear updates: how the health system is coping, how much more capacity it has, where health experts see the current outbreak going in terms of numbers, whether there is anything (apart from the obvious) that needs to be done.
In a time of uncertainty, plain speaking can be the perfect antidote.
More, please.