Doctors are idolised for saving lives but they are also human, and there is a movement afoot to encourage them not to suffer in silence until depression and exhaustion leads to suicide – and the Eastern Cape is in the vanguard.
The #MeFirst campaign was launched by the South African Medical Association (Sama) on Friday in Berea, East London.
The launch saw about 200 Eastern Cape doctors converge on the BMW Autohaus Monti premises, where Sama, Harvey World Travel, Standard Bank and BKR were among the stakeholders raising awareness about doctors’ mental health.
National Sama vice-chairperson Dr Anastasia Rossouw, the only female neurologist in the province, said the association’s core function was to care for doctors’ needs.
“We decided to look further than just fighting for doctors’ salaries and include in our focus doctors’ physical and mental well-being after several incidents where we lost colleagues to suicide because they were suffering in silence and felt they couldn’t confide in anybody.
“The hashtag #MeFirst is to raise awareness that we are humans first before we are doctors and we also have personal problems to deal with besides pressure from work,” she said.
Rossouw said the initiative was a first for the association, and they planned to take the campaign to other provinces with activities such as dialogues, fun runs and road shows.
“Through organising the campaign, we’ve discovered we’re not alone in this struggle – it’s not just a doctor thing, but something that can affect any professional and anybody in any working environment. People need to feel comfortable talking about their issues without having to break down.
“We need to break the barriers of communication and the stigma of judging people as weak when they are going through something,” she said.
Keynote speaker Dr Ntandazo Puzi, a psychiatrist at St Marks in Selborne, said he was happy to see mental health coming to the forefront of medical conditions.
“For years psychiatry was seen as torture and was unrecognised as medical science to the extent that people were given a choice of prison or a mental institution as a form of punishment,” he said.
“For doctors, while people rely on us to make the correct health call, sometimes we are also the bearers of bad news, so it’s important for doctors to also receive counselling and have someone to talk to.”
Dr Dideka Kekeza, from Mthatha, welcomed the initiative, saying it would help doctors to stop living in silos.
“Nobody is perfect, contrary to what people believe we are not God and we also break.
“Hopefully, through the campaign, we won’t lose any more colleagues to suicide, but we can better engage and be open to what we are each experiencing,” she said...