Vets, paramedics among jobs with highest suicide rates

TRAUMA, isolation, long hours, stress and poor pay are contributing to high suicide rates in our state’s deadliest jobs.

News.Alistair Briggs speaks about his PTSD, which he suffered through working as a paramedic. Pic at ambulance headquarters in Kyneton. Picture:Andrew Tauber

VETERINARIANS, paramedics, security guards, truck drivers and engineers share some of the state’s deadliest jobs a new report has found.

A Victorian Coroners Prevention Unit report into suicide rates among workers in key professions raises serious questions about the level of support provided in some occupations.

Employee groups say trauma, isolation, long hours, stress and poor pay contribute to high suicide rates in some professions, although the report says more research is needed to say if particular jobs directly cause or contribute to workers taking their lives.

One of the starkest contrasts is among emergency workers, with Victoria’s paramedics having an average annual suicide rate of 35.6 per 100,000 workers - more than three-and-a-half times higher than police (10 per 100,000), and fire fighters and other emergency workers (10.5).

Only vets recorded a higher suicide rate at 38.2 per 100,000. And in findings that will surprise many, hairdressers (11.2), real estate agents (13.4) and engineers (21) were all found to have higher rates of suicide than police, fire fighters and other non-paramedic emergency workers.

Security guards (34.6) and truck drivers (23.3) are also professions that appear to need greater support.

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One paramedic told the Sunday Herald Sun many paramedics fell through the cracks because the support system relied largely on self-reporting.

“Peer support counsellors do a good job in difficult circumstances but timely access to professional counselling is crucial and the system of self-referral misses many at high risk of self-harm.”

Ambulance Employees Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said paramedics’ exposure to death and trauma, coupled with long, irregular hours, played a role in the profession’s high suicide rate.

“It’s not always easy to go home to your family after a busy shift and just switch off,” he said.

Mr McGhie said he had asked the coroner to undertake further detailed analysis of the data but the need of greater support to address a lack of work-life balance among paramedics was a problem the union, Ambulance Victoria and the Andrews Government were now determined to address.

Australian Veterinary Association national president Dr Robert Johnson said vets were also exposed to constant trauma, including euthanasia of pets, long hours and at time difficult client relations.

“Vets are grief counsellors, we have to do this every day. To a lot of people the death of a pet is just as important to them as the death of a family member, sometimes even more important. This can be difficult,” Dr Johnson said.

He said isolation was also an issue with vets who, like paramedics, tend to work in greater isolation than other medical and emergency workers based at hospitals or stations.

Dr Johnson said the association was currently rolling out a mentoring scheme for graduates to boost support and also provides counselling and financial support to vets in need.

The Coroners Prevention Unit says more work is needed to determine the exact contribution of occupations to suicide rates and to account for age and gender differences, with men far more likely to succeed in taking their own lives.

For example, the rate of 9.7 suicides per 100,000 nurses - 90 per cent of who are women - is slightly below the state average but more than double that for all employed women. The reverse is true for truck drivers, who are 98 per cent male.

The statewide average annual suicide rate among all Victorian is 10.9 per 100,000 but falls to 8.9 per 100,000 among the working population.

THE HELPERS WHO NEED HELP THE MOST

AL Briggs still has nightmares after two decades as a paramedic.

At its worst, the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered gave him nights of no sleep and days of constant flashbacks.

“You just accumulate stuff,” he said. Stuff like the toddler, the same age as his daughter, who was run over in the driveway.

Or the child cowering in the laundry, watching as he tended to a murdered man.

Or the countless suicides.

“You just see stuff nobody else sees, thank Christ,” the 48-year-old said. “And everybody we see, we see them on their worst day.”

It takes its toll. Mr Briggs took six months off with PTSD after a fatal car crash became one too many.

“Like a champagne cork bursting, all the froth just spewing out,” he said.

It’s a problem many colleagues faced. At one point, Mr Briggs was going to four funerals a year of paramedics who took their lives. Isolation, heavy workloads and a macho culture add to the burden.

“If you don’t to anything about it, eventually it comes back to bite you,” he said.

- Ashley Argoon