On a trip to the country last year to visit my sister, I was invited out to her boyfriend’s farm. Needless to say, I thoroughly humiliated myself. Trudging through the mud in my brand-new sneakers, getting the bottoms of my newer jeans sodden, having the s*** scared out of me by a charging bull … (alright, maybe not so much “charging” as “quietly standing on the other side of a fence, probably laughing at the petrified city girl”) my most recent trip to rural Australia was not an astounding success.
It’s difficult for many city folk to get a grip on what it means to live in the country. Wide open spaces. The sort of tan a beach-lover would kill for. And sheep, all those thousands and thousands of
sheep … it’s easy to resort to the cliché of the rugged stockman, staring out upon a barren landscape (I am quite looking forward to Baz Luhrmann’s planned film,
Australia, starring Hugh Jackman as said stockman).
Of course, the picture of our landscape is more complicated than that, and life in the country isn’t always laid-back and peaceful. The ABC recently reported that SANE Australia, the National Mental Health Charity, receives twice as many calls to its mental health helpline from people in rural areas than it receives from those living in cities.
People living in rural and remote Australia sometimes talk about experiencing feelings of isolation or disconnection from community. Add to this family, social or financial worries and it becomes easy to imagine how some people come to suffer from mental illness.
Some research has suggested that the incidence of mental health problems is greater in rural areas. This is particularly significant amongst young people—males in rural areas are two-times more likely to suicide than the rest of the population.
The stigma of mental illness—that it’s a sign of ‘weakness’ or something you just ‘get over’—is a reason those suffering from mental illness sometimes don’t seek help. Beyondblue, the national depression initiative, has taken its high-profile campaigns to rural areas, encouraging people to talk about their mental health issues, and initiatives like Reach Out! use the internet to contact those in difficult situations.
Reports that helplines are becoming inundated with calls shows there is a willingness to recognise the signs of depression and indicates that, at last, the stigma of mental illness is being erased. As Barbara Hocking of SANE says, “people understand that depression can happen to anyone, as can any other mental illness”.
The work of organisations like beyondblue, SANE and Reach Out!, is crucial to improving people’s understanding of mental illness. But without consistent face-to-face contact, the effectiveness of campaigns is hugely limited. Rural areas are drastically in need of more medical professionals, including mental health workers—psychologists, nurses and counsellors. We need to train more doctors and mental health professionals, and to offer greater incentives for graduates and established professionals to work in rural areas.
Perhaps, though, things are changing. In its 2006 Budget, the federal government committed $1.9 billion to improving access to mental health services in both the city and the country. Together with an increasing awareness of mental health issues, it seems hopful that there will be a greater focus on national mental health issues in the future.
If I learnt anything from my brief adventure in outback Australia, it was this: I don’t get it. I don’t understand what it means to ‘live on the land’, with animals and crops and dust and droughts. But while it’s easy to think of country Australia as a land of hard work and self-reliance, sometimes even the Hugh Jackman-alikes need outside help.
How do I know this?
ABC Online,
Mental health helpline inundated with calls,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1837645.htm
Department of Health and Ageing,
COAG Mental Health,
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/coag-mental-index.htm
Kamien, M and Cameron, W 2006, ‘Solving the shortage of general practitioners in remote and rural Australia: a Sisyphean task?’,
The Medical Journal of Australia,
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/185_11_041206/
National Rural Health Alliance 2005,
Submission to the Senate Select Committee on Mental Health,
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/mentalhealth_ctte/
Senate Select Committee on Mental Health 2006, A national approach to mental health,
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/mentalhealth_ctte/report/
