By Laura Hughes (Clinical Manager)
Harmless and The Tomorrow Project were honoured to be invited to speak at an event in Leicester yesterday for National Suicide Memorial Day for Health and Care Workers.
Countless healthcare workers, regardless of their roles, are exposed to traumatic scenarios and events that most people would never experience through their working lives. These may include seeing graphic injuries, providing CPR in life-threatening situations, exposure to self harm or suicide, or witnessing deaths. The trauma and high-level stress in the everyday can take its toll on healthcare workers, and protecting their mental health is of the utmost importance.
Approximately one doctor dies by suicide every three weeks, and one nurse dies by suicide every week. These statistics themselves are heartbreaking, but what is most important is the acknowledgement that behind every statistic there is a person. A person whose valuable life has been lost, and leaves behind grieving families, friends, and colleagues.
At this event for National Suicide Memorial Day for Health and Care Workers in Leicester, we spoke about our self harm, suicide bereavement, and trauma services that we can provide for those impacted by suicide. We shared our lived experiences about exposure to self harm and suicide at work, and experiencing mental health difficulties within a professional context. We also spoke passionately about how our suicide bereavement service is here for absolutely anybody who has lost someone to suicide, whether they’ve lost a family member, a friend, a close colleague, a distant colleague, a patient, a stranger, or anybody else in their life.
We were honoured to hear people’s lived experiences in return, and to have such powerful conversations with representatives of NHS, Practitioner Health, and Doctors in Distress.
If you are a healthcare worker and have been impacted by a death by suicide, self harm, trauma, or suicidal thoughts, please know that you deserve support and we are here for you.
In memory of all healthcare workers who have lost their lives to suicide.
If you or anyone you know is being affected by self harm, thoughts of suicide or bereavement by suicide, you can make a referral for support via the button below.
