OUR KIDS ARE DYING
Kowanyama mayor’s desperate plea for mental health fix
THE Cairns Post has prompted an urgent review into mental health services at Kowanyama after a desperate plea for help from the community.
There has been a horrific spate of youth suicides since a car rammed into a house full of mourners killing one and injuring 25 in October.
Mayor Michael Yam (right) said the town was in the grip of a mental health crisis and slammed politicians for doing nothing.
“We will not sit silently by any longer and watch our children die,” Mr Yam said.
THE remote community of Kowanyama has issued a desperate cry for help following a horrifying run of youth suicides.
A senior frontline staffer in the town has told how the community has descended into a deep sense of despair since the public tragedy in October when a car rammed into a house full of mourners, resulting in a 48-year-old woman being killed and 25 others injured.
The staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there had been more than 20 suicides or attempts in Kowanyama, which has a population of about 1200, since the shocking event in October.
The latest was a 23-year-old local man, who took his own life in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Tragically, it’s understood his father was driving the ambulance that took the man’s body to the town’s clinic.
A 25-year-old woman also attempted suicide at the weekend after reportedly trying to phone for support, but the town’s unreliable telecommunications network prevented her reaching help.
“Kowanyama is a community in crisis,” the frontline worker told the Cairns Post.
“We are in desperate need of government help but we have a government that seems disinterested in helping.”
The whistleblower said there was a lack of doctors, nurses and outreach services on the ground in the town.
“We’re pleading to the premier and to the prime min- ister. We desperately need help, please, send it.”
Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council Mayor Michael Yam said, for cultural reasons, he could not comment on the latest suicide.
But he issued an emotional and powerful call for help.
“Kowanyama is in the grip of a mental health crisis and the Queensland Government is failing,” Cr Yam said.
“Talk is cheap but a lack of action is tragically expensive.
“We are sick of fly-in, flyout (government) ministers nodding at us but doing nothing. It’s time for the government to deliver.
“We will not sit silently by any longer and watch our children die.”
According to suicide prevention body Lifeline, indigenous people are twice as likely to die by suicide as non-indigenous people.