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‘You are not alone’: Call for action amid spate of GP suicides
One regional centre’s loss of five doctors in two years is likely the tip of the iceberg, but a lack of hard data means the tragic situation is difficult to quantify.
Around 50% of all junior doctors say they have experienced moderate to high levels of distress.
Mental health advocates are pleading for urgent, systemic, and meaningful change to reverse the ongoing, but often unspoken, trend of doctors taking their own lives.
The scale of the problem is difficult to measure – while almost certainly significant, no one is responsible for keeping track of the tragic statistics.
However, anecdotal evidence is all too easy to find and suggests help is greatly needed.
In Townsville, where RACGP Vice President Associate Professor Michael Clements lives and practises, the community lost five doctors in just two years. He said the fact that it happened in a tight-knit regional area meant ‘we all felt it’.
‘In some of these stories that we hear, there is no warning. We might have been walking side by side, and one of my colleagues will say, “I saw this person every day, and I had no clue”,’ he told newsGP.
‘We as health professionals train and learn how to support our patients, but our colleagues often can present as a bit of a mystery to us.’
In a bid to combat this problem, which is presenting itself across Australia, Crazysocks4docs Day Founder and Cardiologist Dr Geoff Toogood is now calling for the establishment of a national register of healthcare worker suicides.
The idea comes ahead of Crazysocks4docs Day on Friday, which aims to break down the stigma around mental health issues in doctors and health professionals and this year will focus on regional, rural and remote workers.
‘What it does is, by collecting hard data, we can advocate better for change and action, because if you don’t know the numbers then we don’t know what we should be looking at to try and address this,’ Dr Toogood told newsGP.
‘It is a demanding, stressful job and there’s lots of stresses external to medicine with compliance and things going on outside the practice of medicine.
‘We want people to advocate for better conditions around the way mental health is treated, we want people to have tangible actions, we want people to be able to do something about it.’
Associate Professor Clements welcomed this idea, saying if the true numbers are not known, it is harder to create meaningful action.
‘The true number of veteran suicides was certainly unknown until we did a register, and it was only after the register that we started trying to quantify that, and that led to changes and things like a royal commission,’ he said.
‘It also helps us as a college to better support our trainees and better support each other, but also for the regulator to actually start looking at this as a problem.’
According to Australian research, female doctors take their own life at 2.27 times the rate of the general population, and male doctors at 1.41 times.
At the same time, around 20% of medical students have reported suicidal ideation in the preceding 12 months, while half of junior doctors had experienced moderate to high levels of distress.
And while Townsville GP and mental health advocate Dr Sarah Kleinman does not support the idea of a national register, saying it is ‘nice in intent … I don’t know that it changes things too much’, she believes something needs to be done.
Dr Kleinman is instead advocating for the establishment and funding of a Chief Wellbeing Officer in her own community, and eventually in towns across Australia.
‘In my dream world, I’d have one for the hospital system and one for the community and they would liaise with each other, and they would be external to the colleges and the Australian Medical Association, and they would be federally funded,’ she told newsGP.
‘I would like to have some money set aside so those people who are interested, and able, and capable, and have the breadth and ability to actually make some change, and to make this their job rather than all doctor wellbeing being on a volunteer basis by doctors.
‘We have been “physician, heal thyself” for too long and it’s time we actually started putting structures in place so we can be cared for as carers.’
Dr Kleinman pointed to AHPRA’s mandatory reporting policy as a significant barrier for many GPs who might otherwise seek help.
‘We’ve set up a Big Brother situation where doctors might be worried about seeing doctors because if they get help, it may actually then lead to a level of upheaval that could add to their stress and distress,’ she said.
‘Adding to that, in a regional area where we all pretty much know each other or are once removed from each other, there’s that worry about confidentiality and good regard in your community, so it becomes a very complex thing to seek help.
‘Particularly as GPs, we’re usually sole traders or contractors and we don’t have access to sick leave, so if you go and speak to a doctor and they tell you that you need two weeks off from work, if this isn’t covered by income protection insurance, what do you do? How do you pay your mortgage?’
And while healthcare workers have different ideas for how they want change created, all are advocating for the same outcome.
Dr Toogood’s simple advice for fellow doctors who are struggling – speak up and seek help.
‘Sometimes doctors can be scared because they’re worried about what the patients are going to say, but in general the patients are quite fine, the stigma has come from my colleagues,’ he said.
‘We as doctors treat our colleagues poorly with regard to mental health issues, which means we’re reluctant to reach out and get help, we’re scared to get help, we fear for our careers.
‘But there is help available and you are not alone.’
If you or anyone you know needs help, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 for 24/7 crisis support.
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