Kathy is a 55-year-old mom to a son in his 20s, a caregiver to her father who’s living with prostate cancer and a leader in her workplace pushing for better men’s health outcomes.
According to a national report on the state of men’s health in Canada, there are three core themes highlighted in the report released by the Movember Institute of Men’s Health.
In the report, it was stated, more than two-in-five Canadian men will die prematurely before the age of 75 from largely preventable causes. Stigma, gender bias and low health literacy are barriers that remain long-standing challenges for men. These barriers often prevent men from seeking care until it’s too late.
The report also noted poor men’s health outcomes also impact partners, friends, families and communities due to the emotional, mental, physical and economic toll associated with caregiving.
As a parent, Kathy was shocked to hear her son say he no longer wanted to live when he was a teenager. Kathy says she immediately took action to try and help him the best she could. She says she now listens more and talks less.
Kathy is the safety lead at a company in northern Alberta with a predominately male workforce. Kathy notes she sees first-hand the effects of poor health literacy and barriers men experience engaging with health care systems. She continues to work with her colleagues to break stigma and support the men she works with, especially after losing a close friend to suicide.
“I learned about Movember through my son. He asked for a donation, and I gave him a donation not really understanding what Movember was. I started looking more into Movember because I work at Kearl oil sands. We have a 91 per cent male workforce and I started looking at the men’s mental health aspect of what we have at work,” Kathy says.
Kathy feels as though men, too often, feel pressure to bottle up their emotions and suppress any display of vulnerability or empathy.
At work, Kathy says a counsellor now visits the site every second week. “She has seen over 150 first-time users. It makes me feel proud, that as a company, we have the support of looking after our employees.”
Kathy adds she took steps to start to understand more about suicide, after her friend took his life. “Although we might not always be able to see the signs, when you do, not to be scared to talk about it and to look at the safety plans that are there and all the support out there, so we can educate ourselves better to help men.”
“I just think they suffer in silence too long with battles of stress and pain and they don’t feel they have permission to speak up. I think every man deserves space to be vulnerable and to be able to take care of, not only their mental health, but also their physical health without shame,” Kathy explains.
