Despair as five young men die in Griffith suicide cluster and the town is desperate for help
Griffith is experiencing a cluster of young men who have suicided. The town and the surrounding areas have the highest suicide rate in NSW at twice the state average, but the new hospital being built doesn’t have a mental health unit.
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It’s the country area that already has the highest suicide rate in the state and where five boys have taken their own lives since December.
Yet the new hospital being built there does not even have a mental health unit.
As a former teacher at Murrumbidgee Regional High School, Griffith psychotherapist Jenna Woodland said she had “never seen it this bad before”.
“Absolutely it’s a crisis. There’s been a cluster, it started in December and they had been students or previous students who left school one or two years before,” Ms Woodland said.
“This is just my theory but social media has connected people but, at the same time, has isolated people — you can have a thousand Facebook friends but you still are sitting at home in your bedroom on your own.
“So you can text back you are OK if someone asks, but face-to-face you can say: ‘Really, you don’t look OK’ and the conversation can be generated.
“All except one are Aboriginal or Pacific Islander boys,” she said.
A new hospital is being built in Griffith — but with no mental health facility. The suicide rate in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District is double the state average.
“It’s insane. People have asked for it,” she said.
“I took a man aged 32 to hospital and we waited five hours to get a link up to Wagga. By then it was 1am, he was agitated, wanted to leave, he was suicidal and they treated him like a criminal.
“We were stuck in a little room that resonated as a cell. We’ve had women self-harming and have been told by staff they are wasting a bed.
“There is still that real stigma and misunderstanding around mental health.
“There are a multitude of government agencies in Griffith, but you have to jump through hoops.
“You need a doctor’s referral. Now what 15-year-old boy who is suicidal makes himself an appointment, pays $70 and waits two weeks to get into a GP to get a referral?
“Nothing is open after hours, nothing is open on the weekends. In June, there were 20 attempts, according to the Griffith Suicide and Support Group.”
Canterbury Bulldogs hopeful Ziggie Vincent, 19, died in late December. Several days later, local Griffith football coach Andrew Hoggart, 24, also died.
Vincent was staying in the Sydney home of his mentor Anthony Mundine, who remains shaken by the young man’s loss.
“He was staying in the house with me and I had no indication,” Mr Mundine said.
“I always told him, ‘if you need someone to talk to, I’m here’. He was only 19 and had the world at his feet, he would have made the top grade, but he wasn’t happy on the inside.
“To me he seemed like a happy kid, but he had demons on the inside.”
NSW Murray MP Helen Dalton has raised the lack of services in her electorate in parliament this week.
“We haven’t got one mental health unit in any hospital, and it is just not acknowledged we have a problem,” Ms Dalton said. “We are losing people from suicide far more than we are from COVID-19, it’s an epidemic.”
A NSW Education Department spokesman said: “The school has a number of staff supporting student wellbeing, including three counsellors, three student support liaison officers and a community liaison officer. The school has 1260 students enrolled.”
According to the NSW Ombudsman’s 2019 report into suicide clusters in school-aged children, suicide is one of the leading causes of premature death among young people. Between 2012 and 2016, 435 school-aged children (5-17 years) suicided in Australia.
“Screening high-risk individuals is important as a response to a suicide cluster,” the report said.
“Individuals may become high-risk after the suicide of someone in their community or social network, or may have attempted suicide recently.”
The incidence of suicide in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District is double that of the state average.
In nearby Goolgowi, 45 minutes west of Griffith, the tiny town of 400 recently lost 21-year-old Billy Hale in March and then, in July, his mother Donna also suicided leaving behind a husband and two other children.
One month before, Donna Hale pleaded for those in distress to ask for help.
“Please ask for help if you need it. No family needs to have to go through the loss of their child,” she said.
Originally published as Despair as five young men die in Griffith suicide cluster and the town is desperate for help