Calls for culturally safe, holistic health services reverberate through rural Indigenous communities as the region's mental health crisis deepens. Video by Gareth Gardner and Jonathan Hawes
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00:00A serene landscape portrays a region on the verge of crisis.
00:09Declining mental health and lack of access to health services is increasing rates of
00:13addiction and suicide among remote communities, adding to cycles of trauma among some of our
00:18oldest cultures.
00:22Auntie Sue Smith, a proud Gomorrah woman, shares the story of discovering her son's
00:27body after he tragically took his own life.
00:30On that Saturday, I said, we better go and check on this lad in town, so I left my washing
00:37away.
00:38We went, got to the house, and there was police cars everywhere.
00:43I'm thinking, oh, his partner might have come home, must be domestic, you know, like that.
00:50I've never, ever gone to the front door of that, the back door of that house.
00:55I've always gone to the front.
00:57This day, I went around the back, and I was whistling.
01:02Picked up the newspaper, walked through the gate, and bang, you know, it wasn't a pretty
01:10sight.
01:11And that sight's here in my mind all the time, I close my eyes, and it's there, you know.
01:17But through the Lord, he's given me the strength, and with Dr. Sue, I've had great support.
01:23I'm here on this journey.
01:25I know Sue's story, and I know there are a couple of stories, real horrific stories.
01:32There was a suicide here, hanging himself, like I know this family.
01:37I knew he liked a little drink, but didn't know that he was doing other stuff, you know.
01:44And then, he just changed.
01:47Within a week, I noticed the difference, because he used to ring me every day, just to talk
01:52about anything, whatever, cars, and football.
01:55But then, you know, he just, there one day, and gone the next, within a week.
02:03The state government has already committed to building a new mental health unit here
02:07at the Tamworth Hospital, but Dr. Sue says that a culturally safe practice would go further
02:11in closing the gap.
02:12If they are really wanting to close the gap, prevention of suicide is one of them, mental
02:21health, addiction, all these things are there, in that gap, so why not finding a more culturally
02:29appropriate healing practice, if we can.
02:34And the two Sues are working on a plan to channel the community's pain into making a
02:39brighter future.
02:40We have a little block of land just out of Carldale there, yeah, because I'd like it
02:45to be near water, you know, like, I think.
02:50It might be a holiday place for them, they'll have things to do in there.
02:54It's like, for indigenous people, their culture, their community, their healing, their elders,
03:01a lot of things matters.
03:03I'm not saying it doesn't matter to the others, but that's where they come from.
03:09Aunty Sue told us of the struggles her sons had with mental health, addiction, and depression,
03:14one of them being committed to the Tamworth-Banksia Mental Health Unit, which she described as
03:20not the right place.
03:21There has to be something in this world that can help.
03:27Really, you know, you've really got to get to the problem at the end of the day, haven't
03:32you?
03:33You know, just shoving them here and giving them this and giving them that isn't working
03:38in my book, you know, it didn't help my boys anyway.