DON’T IGNORE HUMAN COST
THE Gold Coast has finally been given the ballpark figure it has been dreading.
Mental health advocates predict suicide rates will spike up to 50 per cent once the social and economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic is finally calculated.
Bulletin staff have experienced the pain of out-of-work Gold Coasters and business owners first-hand because vulnerable people cannot see a way out.
Last week, this newspaper wrote about a former New Zealand rugby hardman who made the foolish decision to seek a life insurance payout for his family because he was struggling to put food on the table. The rope burns are healing. Thankfully, he is in recovery.
He has paid his taxes every week of the seven years he has lived on the Gold Coast, but lost his job when his firm went bust. He was ineligible for a government subsidy.
The tradie is just one example of the human toll starting to grip the Coast.
The lucky ones are on the Federal Government’s JobKeeper scheme, but their pain will worsen in September when the program expires. Those less fortunate are being fed by friends and have no idea how to pay the next round of bills.
This is the real cost of a crisis that has suffocated a city normally reliant on smiling, friendly faces. The Bulletin has revealed stark findings as the Coast reels from a $6 billion tourism mecca to an economic wasteland – theme parks bleeding up to $15 million a month; about 7500 business closures in April, $1.2 billion to be stripped from the interstate market in three months …
As blunt as those reports have been, however, the true worry has always been the hidden human cost. Gold Coasters are phoning Lifeline every 30 seconds and seeking help for depression and alcohol abuse.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has become a walking contradiction during the crisis. She says it wasn’t her fault 30,000 protesters marched on Brisbane; she told them to stay away. Her Government is in the High Court arguing it does not concede that the state’s exile from the rest of the country has hurt 60,000 Gold Coast small businesses; yet every possible measure shows it has. She said interstate travel would be allowed from July 10; a week later we were told September was “more realistic”. She told NSW to get its house in order; yet it was the one that allowed 50 patrons in restaurants and cafes when Queensland could have only 20 and will resume community sport on July 1. Struggling sporting codes in the sunshine state have no idea when they will resume, if at all.
The economic carcass aside, the biggest denial has been the Government’s rhetoric about “looking after Queenslanders” by refusing to open the border and ease suffocating restrictions.
The Premier and Mayor Tom Tate are worried we might open the door to a second wave of the virus. It was rejected last week by chief medical officer Dr Jeannette Young, providing federal guidelines are followed.
What we have now is a health issue of a different kind. The State Government has tried to fob off Bulletin questions about mental health and suicides, but it cannot be ignored any longer.
Health experts say it is real and the Government needs to openly address it.