ATA: spotlight on suicide, sleep apnoea

Trucking advocate gears up for major push on two health issues affecting road transport and the wider community

The Australian Trucking Association has highlighted suicide and sleep apnoea as two major health issues affecting Australian road transport, and will direct resources towards both concerns in the months ahead.

National emergency

Speaking at the opening address of the Australian Trucking Association's Trucking Australia 2017 conference in Darwin last week, ATA Chair Geoff Crouch (pictured) said the current rate of suicide in this country constituted nothing short of a "national emergency".

"Mental health and suicide must be vital concerns for every business, industry association and our whole community," he said.

"Suicide is the major cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44. More people die from suicide than in road crashes."

Mr Crouch said it was crucial that the ATA throw its support behind suicide prevention strategies.

"As a network of associations we need to take action, because we represent a business centre that covers more than 160,000 Australians," he said.

"Based on statistics, our industry could lose another 32 people to suicide in the coming year – and the next year, and the year after that. Thirty-two husbands, wives, sons and daughters, every year.

"It's time to take action. If this is not a national emergency for our industry, then I don't know what is."

Mr Crouch said the ATA would be actively partnering with crisis support and suicide prevention organisation Lifeline as a first step, before joining other business associations nationally to "argue for better government policies to assist in preventing suicide".

"Throughout 2017 we will be talking to our members and sponsors about the details of what we can all do about this national crisis," Mr Crouch said.

"This is a new area of lobbying for the ATA, but it is one that is just as important as any other issue we're currently working on. If we could assist in preventing just one death, we will have made a difference."

Sleeping giant

Mr Crouch also flagged the health issue of sleep apnoea in his opening address in Darwin. At Trucking Australia 2012 ATA delegates heard from medical researchers that drivers with sleep apnoea were two to seven times more likely to have the condition, while potentially as many as 28 per cent of long-distance drivers were likely to be driving with undiagnosed sleep apnoea.

While in 2016 the ATA successfully lobbied to include a warning to doctors about sleep apnoea when assessing drivers for fitness to drive, Mr Crouch said the organisation would now be pushing to take some cues from the medical standards for train drivers to improve detection of this potentially deadly disease.

"Unlike the truck driver medical standard, the rail standards include a highly effective and objective screening test for sleep apnoea, and there are some components of this standard that could potentially be used to better diagnose sleep apnoea in truck drivers," he said.

"We are fortunate to have Michelle Hendy [Chief Planning Officer of the National Transport Commission] and Sal Petroccitto [CEO of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator] here with us; the ATA looks forward to working with both entities to ensure that truck drivers have a similar standard of health to train drivers."

ATA: spotlight on suicide, sleep apnoea

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