From the BBC news web
site : Cardiff prison officer's suicide after rugby sacking
I felt angry and
disgusted after reading about the way this woman was treated by her
employer which led to her taking her own life. She had been signed off
work with a stress-related condition but had felt well enough to go
out with friends to watch a live TV screening of a rugby match. But a colleague saw her there and informed her employer who charged her with
misconduct and she lost her job. She subsequently committed suicide.
When you are signed off
work, as I have been, with a stress-related illness it does not mean
that you should lock yourself away and put your life on hold. Depression is
not a contagious illness and if you are feeling well enough to go out
with friends then surely that is a sign that you are getting better.
But it does not necessarily mean that you are well enough to return
to work.
For this woman's
employers to treat her as if she was a skiver rather than someone who
was mentally ill is sadly all too common. All too often attitudes
towards mental illness seem to be stuck in the 1950s. And this is
true for those of us seeking work. There is the question of what to
tell a prospective employer. Do you tell them you suffer from such an
illness or do you keep quiet about it?
A few years ago there
was a case of a woman who had lost her job due to
her suffering from depression. When she had recovered sufficiently to
start work again she got a job at a bank but her
illness got worse and she was signed off work. She hadn't told her
employer about her history of depression and when they found out,
they promptly sacked her and she had no come back. But the question
remains – would she have been offered the job in the first place if
she had been honest with her employer?
Being upfront about
health issues would on the one hand seem to be the best policy but on the other it can go against
you. I recently had an interview with a care agency and they pretty
much offered me a job there and then. But they hadn't asked about any
health issues I might have. Knowing that the stress of starting a
new job could make my mental health worse, I emailed them and let
them know of my concerns. Not surprisingly I then received a letter
saying they could not offer me any work. I emailed again asking for some
feedback but heard nothing more from them.
I don't agree with much
that the current government says regarding health and welfare but it
is true that if your depression is mild then getting a job, even
just part time, can help. It is better than sitting at home doing
nothing. But what the government hasn't done, or maybe cannot do, is
stop discrimination against those of us with mental health problems.
I don't think I'm being paranoid when I say I am fairly sure I have
not been offered work because of my history of mental illness.
The tragic story of this
prison officer taking her own life because of an employer's disgraceful
attitude towards mental health conditions will, I fear, just end up
being another statistic of a life lost to depression. And that is
just really, really depressing.
