“Calling depression a mood disorder is like calling a heart attack a chest pain.”
Health & Productivity | Global
In this excerpt from an address by Joseph Ricciuti, Managing Director, Buck Consultants, to the recent Excellence Canada Conference on Mental Health in the Workplace, Joseph talks about the need to move forward from a successful awareness and business-case campaign for tackling the problem, to a 10-year action plan to eradicate the stigma of mental illness.
While today represents the culmination of many small steps resulting in big strides, there is much more work to be done in the years ahead. We must continue to make new progress and not rest on our laurels. I believe we must once again “kick start” the discussion, to build on the successes of today and transform the way forward into the future. Toward that goal, I put forth my view of how this future could look.
Ten years from now, I would like to stand before you and declare that stigma has been eradicated. This is a crucial issue.
Ten years from now, I would like to declare that stress has been eliminated from the workplace. Unless we improve the risk factors impacting mental health in the workplace, we might as well have a 4-day work week and just pay staff to stay home one day each week. Because after all, in reality we are getting close to that state now. The only difference is that companies today are complacent in knowing that people are at least physically at work, even though they are not being productive while they are present. Organizations need to come to grips with the truth that they are being short-changed by the lack of effective presence at work! Indeed, the research shows that persistent presenteeism costs businesses more than all the other kinds of Mental Health -related workplace losses combined.
My goals are not too far-fetched. Recently I was invited along with others from the US and Canada to review the draft report prepared by Bill Wilkerson (Co-Chair Advisory Board, Former Chairman and CEO Global Business & Economic Roundtable on Addiction & Mental Health Toronto) on the 10th anniversary of the Mental Health Roundtable. I can report, that this report will launch a new agenda for Mental Health in the workplace. Bill is right on so many other fronts that it is worth noting. Let me recount three of them:
- Calling depression a mood disorder is like calling a heart attack a “chest pain.” The sad truth is depression kills through suicide and heart attack. Depression is not just some kind of ‘mood disorder,’ it can be – it often is – a matter of life and death. I think that the slogan of the National Mental Health Commission is correct - There can be no health without mental health.
- ‘Psycho-social risk in the workplace, a fancy name for job stress, is as big an occupational health and safety issue today as asbestosis was 30 years ago. Depression is more like an injury than an illness, because our brain gets damaged by chronic job stress when we work in hostile work environments. It’s like a repetitive strain injury on the brain.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder – an extreme form of anxiety – is a normal response to an abnormal experience. PTSD is like a concussion from the inside out.
From this reality, and to achieve what I hope will be in 10 years from now, I would support a call to action that demands:
- A radical overhaul of the nomenclature and (insurance, health) industry assumptions of mental health and mental illness
- A collaborative- care model that improves access to care and the adjudication process to speed up the implementation of treatment plans
- More collaboration between Management and Unions in the fight to reduce workplace stigma and to advance accommodation principles that ensures a safe and healthy return to work
- A Mental Health RTW best practice approach which balances patient privacy concerns with appropriate disclosure to ensure that peer support from co-workers is there for the asking
- Refinement of Case management standards and criteria to establish professional qualifications for treatment providers
- Care and treatment of chronic illnesses that recognizes the profound impact of depression.
- Eradication of benign language which trivializes the very real bodily effects of depression – phrases like ‘mood disorder’
- Major changes in medical education to train family physicians to more effectively diagnose and treat depression and anxiety in more collaborative ways that go beyond the routine reliance on a medication only model
- A workplace-based mental health care system that is closely aligned with tax-funded physician care
- More Canadian-based research on the economic impact of presentieeism and voluntary employee turnover due to stress in the workplace
I trust all stakeholders will join me in advancing these initiatives. The future of Canada will be much brighter when we do.
