Five years ago, in 2014, port worker Remco Span\u2019s sister committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Some months later, Remco, now 44, began to experience depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He works in the Netherlands for a ferry company, in a ferry terminal where there are incoming and outcoming trains for discharging containers to go to the UK, and one day, while working on the rail service, he collapsed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just, in my mind, saw what must have happened,\u201d he reflects.<\/p>\n
From that moment, every time Remco had to work on the rail service, he had a negative experience, triggered by the environment in which he was working. Remco is a union representative, meaning he has a closer relationship with his HR manager than other employees, and at one point, she asked Remco how he was doing following the death of his sister. Remco told her about the problems he had been experiencing, and she told him to speak to the company doctor about what he had been going through. In the Netherlands, all businesses have their own doctor.<\/p>\n
Following his appointment with the doctor, Remco made a follow-up appointment with the doctor\u2019s company\u2019s mental health service. He had 10 sessions with the service, and the ferry company worker says that they \u201chelped [him] through\u201d. However, when Remco had done 10 sessions (the maximum being six or seven), the service advised a follow-up \u2014 but Remco\u2019s company didn\u2019t want to pay for it, directing him to go to his own doctor under his own health insurance. The port worker ended up seeking treatment in this personal capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou build up a good relationship with your therapist, and that had to stop,\u201d he says of the change in support he went through.<\/p>\n
Setting priorities<\/strong><\/p>\n Mental health is clearly a priority for the ports sector. Richard Steele, chief executive of Port Skills and Safety, the UK\u2019s professional ports health and safety membership organisation, says that one area of opportunity for the ports sector \u201cis very much around mental ill health and positive mental health, and creating workplaces that promote positive mental health and diminish mental ill health\u201d. Mental health is an area where an impact on the sector\u2019s health and safety can really be had, he claims.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are experiencing mental ill health are less likely to make the best judgements and decisions,\u201d he says. \u201cThat then can have an effect on their risk taking.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Steele notes that an opportunity is being missed if mental health and wellbeing support is not right. \u201cIt\u2019s relatively new territory for us, but we\u2019re learning in the same way that many other industries are learning,\u201d he says. \u201cThe construction industry, for example, has put a lot of time and work into this and it has paid dividends, and we are looking to kind of grab some of the best ideas from other sectors and work those into our people. Our people deserve the learning that\u2019s been gained from elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Steels adds that industry partners are being sought for collaboration to try and enhance awareness and identify things like mental health first aid, as well as the kinds of services and providers that are able to support employers in helping their people to be as mentally healthy as possible in their work life. But how easy is it to promote good mental health practices at all levels of the port industry when its culture seems to prevent open conversation about psychological ill health? Remco says that in the male-dominated port business, it isn\u2019t common to talk about mental health issues.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I\u2019m telling it to somebody else \u2026 it can [be the case] that I\u2019m a bit emotional about it in the first instance,\u201d Remco says of his sister\u2019s suicide, \u201cand that\u2019s not really appreciated in a male-dominated area.\u201d<\/p>\n A man\u2019s world<\/strong><\/p>\n A similar picture was painted by a former port worker in the Netherlands in his late fifties, who asked not to be named. In 2011, he was made redundant from a long-held port job in which he claims the workload was too high. Additionally, he was involved in negotiating redundancy pay when his job ended, a process he describes as \u201cvery stressful\u201d. Some years later, his wife recognised that he was suffering from burnout, and he sought help from a psychiatrist.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a man\u2019s world, and you don\u2019t talk about mental problems or physical problems, because [the feeling is] always: \u2018Be a man\u2019\u201d, he says of the port environment. \u201cSince I\u2019ve worked in a completely different environment, I see that\u2019s not the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n The ex-worker claims that discussion of mental health issues doesn\u2019t happen in ports to avoid being viewed as weak. Mental problems suffered by both himself and colleagues were not recognised by his port, he says, and when he approached higher-ups about mental health, the response was: \u201c\u2018You will pay for it, and when you can\u2019t do your job any more, be free to go elsewhere.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Colin Bassam is manager at Port Training Services, an organisation based in the UK\u2019s Port of Blyth that provides training for the port, marine, warehousing, logistics and heavy industrial sectors. He says that although there is currently a societal focus on mental wellbeing and opening up about issues, in the ports industry, which is still \u201cvery macho\u201d, stigma remains. Yet, male suicide rates are over three times higher than rates for females in most high income nations, according to 2005 World Health Organization data. In Mr Bassam\u2019s eyes, port workers are not given enough mental health support.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a port, we would spend millions or thousands servicing a crane: changing its oil, \u2026 giving it a good check-over before it starts \u2026 but nobody focuses on the operator,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat have they been through that night before? \u2026 They need to do a pre-start check on them.\u201d<\/p>\n Taking hold of the situation<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s not all bad practice in the ports industry when it comes to mental health. At the Port of Southampton in the UK, \u201cMental Health First Aiders\u201d have recently qualified, with the port saying that they are \u201cproudly promoting positive mental health by increasing their knowledge to raise awareness of mental health issues and illnesses to support our employees\u201d.<\/p>\n In port operator PD Ports\u2019 magazine Wave, the organisation said it was rolling out a wellbeing programme across the business to help raise awareness of mental health issues and \u201clook to remove some of the stigma previously associated with such issues\u201d. Over the 12 months following the time of publication, the organisation wanted at least one mental health first aider on all of its sites\/operations, and the company also said at this time that it was running a course for managers that would seek to address and reduce mental health issues at work.<\/p>\n At Port Everglades in Florida employees have access to resources like employee assistance programs to use to anonymously tackle issues in the workplace. Additionally, the Seafarers\u2019 House at Port Everglades is open to the port community \u2014 it previously worked with stevedores following the deaths of three longshoremen in an argon gas leak. The port\u2019s county also has a 24-hour phoneline that people with mental health issues can call anonymously.<\/p>\n \u201cComparatively speaking, the availability of resources is much greater for those in a port environment [than seafarers],\u201d notes Glenn Wiltshire, deputy port director.<\/p>\n Mr Steele says that \u201cport organisations work really hard on health and safety and mental health and wellbeing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do now is find new ways of approaching this,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s about giving them the tools to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n But more can always be done, and Mr Bassam thinks that the fundamental issue for dockers is the work-life imbalance. \u201cThe work-life balance sometimes goes the other way towards \u2018it\u2019s all work\u2019, and that has an adverse effect on them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is still much to be done to address the issue of poor mental health among port workers, finds Kate Jones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concessions-investments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}