INTHEBLACK Mental Health 2021 - Magazine - Page 11
Clockwise from top: Patrick McGorry at the Australian of
the Year Awards 2010 with former prime minister Kevin
Rudd and Adam Gilchrist, the former captain of the
Australian one-day cricket team.
McGorry at Bells Beach in Torquay, Victoria, in 2010,
while being filmed for a Qantas advertisement.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews with Patrick McGorry
at the opening of the new Orygen Youth Mental Health
Centre in Parkville, Victoria, in July 2019.
“MY FUNDAMENTAL IDENTITY IS AS A REFORMER, BUT PEOPLE
WILL TRY AND UNDERMINE YOU OR RESIST THOSE CHANGES...
I UNDERSTAND IT THOUGH, BECAUSE WITHOUT RESISTANCE,
YOU’RE NOT REALLY CHANGING ANYTHING.”
political thing, as there are sympathetic
politicians on all sides.”
For business leaders advocating for change,
McGorry cautions against a heavy-handed
approach. “Rather than just saying, ‘You’re
not giving us enough money’, offering hope is
important,” McGorry says.
“You have to offer a solution. You need to
say, ‘If you want to fix this problem, here is
what we can try’.”
McGorry argues that just as the broader
health sector and government have been slow
to support mental health, the business sector
needs to step up as well.
“Mental illness is the most important
non-communicable disease and has twice
the economic impact of cancer,” he says.
“It affects young people and those in
the prime of their life, and yet the relative
investments in cancer and mental health
are like chalk and cheese.”
McGorry would like companies to invest
widely in mental health research as part of their
corporate and social responsibility frameworks.
“It’s so easy for corporates to go to the
knee-jerk, usual suspects when funding
causes, such as cancer charities,” he says.
“Not that these are not deserving, but there
has to be a sense of what is the best use of
resources and money.”
Companies, he argues, need to go beyond
an internal mental health framework for
their employees and fund the external
research that undergirds the programs
they rely on for staff wellbeing.
“If the corporate sector wants to invest in
good mental health for their workers, they have
to invest in us and our research,” McGorry says.
“It’s not going to come out of thin air.”
NO ONE IS IMMUNE
While a large portion of his professional life
has been spent advocating for the rights of
society’s most vulnerable, McGorry is keen
to point out that poor mental health does
not discriminate.
“People from affluent families can suffer
enormously, just the same as poor people,
and it is a basic human right to access
skillful and humane care.
“Anyone in a position of status may feel
they have got nowhere to turn to. If you’re in
a senior position with a mental health issue,
it can be very dangerous, as you feel that
you can’t reach out.”
At times, fighting for better mental
healthcare has taken a toll on McGorry,
who has faced resistance from some quarters
opposed to change.
“My fundamental identity is as a reformer,
but people will try and undermine you or
resist those changes, and the tactics used
are sometimes not very nice. I understand it
though, because without resistance, you’re not
really changing anything,” he says.
What clearly sustains McGorry is what
drew him to psychiatry in the first place:
a passion for the people and the beneficial
nature of his work.
He still spends one day a week working
at one of Melbourne’s headspace centres
and visits the Coffs Harbour headspace in
New South Wales regularly.
“You see people go through tough times,
and then you see them getting better, and
that gives you incredible satisfaction,” he says.
“I overwhelmingly feel a great sense of
gratitude to be able to make a change.”
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