For five years, Nathan Smalley worked as a paediatrician in Vasse, a regional town in Western Australia.
His wife, Carly Smalley, is worried about her young son, Charles, one day following in his dad’s footsteps.
“I want [medicine] to be an industry that Charles can be supported and nurtured in,” she said.
“I want it to be something to aspire to the way it should be. Not the way it currently is.”
Nathan died by suicide in 2020, after dealing with depression and anxiety for many years.
“He struggled his whole life with mental health but he never talked about it, he never saw anyone about it,” Ms Smalley said.
“He was a workaholic, like a lot of medical professionals.
“He did let work take over his life a lot and that, ultimately, was part of the problem.”
Ms Smalley — who now lives in Perth — said her husband was stressed and overworked in the year before he died.
“He started having panic attacks quite severely, almost always related to work,” she said.
She said Nathan turned to self-medicating in order to keep awake, and eventually reported himself to the national health regulator.
‘Massive deterioration’ in mental health
Healthcare workers such as Carly Smalley, who works as a nurse, are raising the alarm at the increasing numbers of their workforce who are battling mental health issues.
A study of more than 7,000 frontline healthcare workers showed that one-in-10 had thoughts of suicide or self-harm during the pandemic.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is concerned about the mental health of workers in a system under prolonged and increasing pressure.
AMA president Steve Robson said the strain on the health system, evident from ambulance ramping and hospital logjams, was having “a significant effect” on the mental health of doctors.
“We’ve seen such a massive deterioration in the mental and emotional well-being of healthcare workers around the country,” Professor Robson said.
“I’ve never seen a rate of people taking their own life as I have in the last 12 months.”
In a statement, federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the government was focused on relieving pressure on the hospital system and investing in general practice.
According to research published in the Medical Journal of Australia, female doctors take their own lives at 227 per cent above the rate of the general population, while male doctors commit suicide at 141 per cent above the rate of other Australians.
“This is a serious problem, not only for doctors, the families and friends, but for the health system as a whole, for the patients that people are caring for,” Professor Robson said.
Doctors want attitudes of their peers to change
Ms Smalley said in the last few months of her husband’s life, Nathan felt isolated and did not know where to turn.
“He didn’t feel like he had a relationship that he could talk to anyone on a more personal level about how he was struggling with both the workload at the hospital and in private practice,” she told ABC’s 7.30.
She said more support from peers was needed for doctors, who put expectations on themselves to be “superhuman” and struggled with asking for help.
“They expect themselves to be above that, and they can’t share that information because they’re admitting they’re not superhuman and that they’re vulnerable,” Ms Smalley said.
During the pandemic, Queenslander Tahnee Bridson launched Hand-n-Hand, a free peer-support program for healthcare workers.
The initiative is aimed at reducing the stigma of mental health within the profession, and encouraging doctors and nurses to talk to their co-workers about their struggles.
A trainee doctor, Dr Bridson said she “felt incredibly stigmatised” after being hospitalised for an eating disorder as a medical student.
“When I made the decision last year to actually speak out about my own personal experience, I had people tell me, ‘You shouldn’t do that, you’ll never be taken seriously as a doctor,'” she told ABC’s 7.30.
“I find it so upsetting that that is the attitude that we still have in the healthcare industry.”
Dr Bridson said the program was designed to promote early intervention to ensure healthcare workers received help before it was “too late”.
“I think, for me, what would have been really helpful is actually having peers who had been through similar things to talk to, and to feel like I wasn’t alone.”
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