Hang on – Help is on the Way! …Or not.

Leading up to last year’s Gumboot Friday fundraising, Mike King said this about our Mental Health system:

(Warning: Some people may find this comment disturbing)

“If you put your faith in the system, there is a better than evens chance that your child will die, because no-one is coming’.

This statement is confronting rather than comforting, and sounds harsh, might even sound callous, but these are words born out of frustration and real-life situations dealing with a mental health system that is under-staffed, under-funded and under-resourced. And waiting for help to come when you know it isn’t, is a scary place to be. Let me tell you a story about that from my time in East Timor, continuing the theme from my last blog…

Another outpost visit, up in the hills; it was well into the night, I had rolled out my sleeping bag – again – and I was just drifting off to sleep when I became aware of the sound of voices, which quickly elevated to people shouting; a few minutes later, my tent flap burst open, and a soldier hastily called out, “Padre, We’ve got a snakebite, and we think it’s the Pit Viper; you’d better come quick”. I guess they figured I could at least bring some comfort to the victim, and at worst, deliver the Last Rites.

Since the snake had slithered off into the night, no-one was sure what species it was; but sightings of the deadly Island Viper weren’t uncommon. Our Doc was on hand and made the call to apply a tourniquet, mindful of the damage that might occur to the leg – if the patient didn’t die; and I climbed in behind the soldier and leaned him back on me so they could get the tourniquet on and then keep his heart above his leg without moving him. The comms officer was already on the radio requesting an urgent medivac, so we knew help would be on the way; but there was a high chance the outcome would be fatal if the chopper didn’t get here soon.

But it was nighttime, pitch black and in a remote location, so that immediately reduced the resources available. There were restrictions on night flying, but someone would do it, even if it was risky – that’s just what you did. And we were told, “It’s okay, help is on the way!”  But it wasn’t okay, and help wasn’t on the way. Back in the Ops room, they were running into brick walls; Whose job is it? Whose territory is it? Who’s got the right equipment? And then there were the politics; the UN probably needed to approve it…

And we waited. And waited. And I comforted the soldier and said repeatedly that help was on the way, knowing full well that it wasn’t. I kept reassuring him while the Ops room kept trying, and we all wondered whether the man who we now believed was dying in my arms would make it. And after the minutes had turned into an hour and a half, and we were still saying that help was on the way, our soldier finally said, “It’s not coming, is it?”

And I had to tell him “No, it’s not coming, not yet.”

Luckily for all of us, there was finally a breakthrough in the wall of politics, bureaucracy and red tape, and help was on the way; we heard the beating of the rotors on an Australian Black Hawk chopper; the Aussies were coming in on night vision goggles, so the all the lights were killed so as not to blind the pilots. And we clambered over the ground in the pitch black trying not to stumble with the stretcher as we got our man to the chopper.

And then it disappeared in the night sky.

In the morning, we waited anxiously to hear any news; then the Doc announced that our snakebite man had made it; not only was he alive, but he hadn’t suffered any critical damage to his leg; and in the midst of the cheering, I found myself thinking, “That’s great, but I hope to God we’re never in that situation again…”

And yet, here we are – again. Mike King has the desperately sad task of declaring that in many mental health crises, help isn’t coming. His charity “I Am Hope” in conjunction with “Gumboot Friday” has enabled free counselling and support for young people to try and bridge the gap, and for many that may be the only help they get, in time to save their lives.

Please give generously to Gumboot Friday. You can donate here: https://www.gumbootfriday.org.nz/2023#donate