Gillard’s life- saving plan
FORMER prime minister Julia Gillard is in Townsville tonight to launch an Australian- first program that will help address the city’s high suicide rate.
The Mentally Healthy City Project is a plan to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people across the community.
The latest statistics revealed in the Chief Health Officer’s report show the average suicide rate is 25 per cent higher in Townsville than the Queensland average.
Ms Gillard will speak at the launch in her position as chair of Beyondblue as will former Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston. Mr Houston is patron of the Tropical Brain and Mind Foundation which is running the project.
Project manager Brendon Marty said there was an appetite for change in the city to address and not ignore mental health issues.
“As we look more into it, it seems like Townsville is ready, there is an appetite for this at the moment – people want change,” he said.
“I grew up in Townsville, I really enjoyed the sense of community that was offered to me growing up here so if there’s an opportunity to give back I’m happy to do it.”
Mr Marty said Townsville was chosen because there was an obvious need to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people across the community.
“We don’t want to focus on illness and disease, it’s more about mental wellbeing and overall health,” he said.
“This is mainly about empowering Townsville individu- als to improve their mental health and wellbeing.”
The cultural diversity of the city and the range of issues it faces is another reason it was chosen for the project.
“There is an obvious need to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people across the community,” Mr Marty said.
Tonight’s event is the official launch and is invite only but Mr Marty said a community event would be held next month to bring awareness to the project.
The initial phase of helping transform Townsville into a mentally healthy city is stakeholder engagement.
From then the project will become “fully embedded” and it is hoped beyond year six it will expand its outcomes further. There is already support from key players in Townsville like the public hospital, which gave in- principle support for the Mentally Healthy City Project at its August board meeting.
It is hoped once this is established here it could then be rolled out to nearby regions and potentially nationally in the future.