I'm asking for thoughtful comments, good, bad, indifferent, and any
unintended consequences:

In a hospital with 3500 to 4000 births annual and 2.5 IBCLCs covering 6
days and Admin wants them to cover 7 days; what do you think of adding a
trained Peer Counselor to the staff? If so, what entry-level job duties
would they have?

I'm thinking of the Board's consideration of an alternative credential
which didn't seem to get much support from many L'net members.
I'm also thinking of the important LLLI Peer Counselors who work at WIC (&
other places?).

On the positive side, they could help assure that all moms could be seen
and helped. (happy patients who breastfeed more and come back to our
hospital again)
On the negative side, they could end up replacing IBCLCs since, from the
CFO's point of view, Counselors could handle the majority of issues and the
hosp might rather have 2-3 Counselors and only one IBCLC. (unintended
consequences that bite you in the backside)

(Think of Fiddler on the Roof:  ...one the one hand....but on the other
hand...)

TIA for your thoughts on this poser of a question.

Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC, RLC
Glendale, AZ
[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html