It’s the month her husband Bob, a grader operator, took his own life after being bullied at work. PHOTO CREDIT BRENDA DUHAIME — Robert Duhaime, 63, a grader operator in Saskatchewan, took his own life on August 31, 2017 after being bullied and harassed in the workplace. Robert Duhaime, 63, died of a drug overdose on August 31, 2017. The couple lived in Vawn, Sask. and Bob worked for the Parkdale Rural Municipality. After being harassed by co-workers about the state of dirt and gravel roads in the township, Bob took a leave of absence, his wife recalled. She returned to work in August, but after just two days, the bullying started again. He told his wife he was going to go and ask for more time. “He took his life instead of going there,” Brenda said. “He was saying, ‘They’re not going to listen to me. I’m a guy who complains about two women and a man bullying me.’ He felt like no one was listening to him. I heard him.” “He asked everyone for help. Ask Worker’s Comp. Ask OH&S. Ask the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. Ask people about health and safety at work. Nobody heard him. Nobody took it seriously.” It was Bob’s job to maintain the roads, but the blizzards and heavy rain that year had made it difficult. The harassment happened daily, Brenda said. He would take calls from 5:30 in the morning until 11:00 pm “We had a lot of wet snow over the Easter weekend,” Brenda recalls. “This is the weekend that really started. It was such a wet spring, it made real dirt road maintenance impossible. Someone asked Bob to do something about the road and he said, “I can’t grade the mud, there’s nothing you can do.” They hoped when she returned to work after stress leave things would be different. The week he took his life, Bob told Brenda to go to Saskatoon with her daughter. Their grandson was attending the hockey camp for a week. “I was on the phone with him that night and he said he was going to go the next day and tell them he needed more time,” Brenda said. When she tried to call him in the morning his phone was switched off. “When I couldn’t hold him, I thought, ‘Something’s not right here,’” Brenda recalls. “He said he would call me at coffee time the next day and let me know how the meeting at work went. “I called my sister to go check the house… I told her where the key was and she got someone to go inside with her. He thought she was just sleeping. I said to wake him up and she said “I can’t”. Bob had overdosed. He was airlifted to a hospital in Saskatoon. The next day, the family made the decision to disconnect the machines to keep him alive. Although Bob suffered from anxiety and had been seeing a psychiatrist since 2005, Brenda said he had never attempted suicide before and there was no indication from his psychiatrist or his family that he would kill himself. “I don’t feel like I had really clear signs that I could have prevented this other than staying home when she encouraged me to go to Saskatoon with my daughter,” Brenda said. Since her story hit the national media, Brenda has received 300 messages from people who are being bullied at work. “I feel like I need to be Bob’s voice for as long as I can,” he said.

Construction workers need support Sept. 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day, but it means nothing unless there is support to help members, said Carmine Tiano, director of occupational health services with the Ontario Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council. There are an inordinate number of construction workers with substance and opioid use problems, but this is a symptom of the larger mental health problem. The construction company is doing more to address the problem and provide support to its members, Tiano said. “When you’re dealing with suicide, substance use or any type of disorder, the issues that you have to fix, yes, they may be medical, but a lot of them are social, a lot of them are workplace issues that we have to deal with,” he said. he said. Many people do not seek help because there is stigma and fear of being blacklisted. “Appropriate measures need to be taken in the workplace. When you’re having conversations with your toolbox, tell them, “it’s okay if you have a problem, this is where you can go. Reaching out doesn’t mean you’re going to be blacklisted… Here’s the supports, this is where you need to go.” That’s kind of of the thing we must do.”

Understanding suicide and dealing with stigma While suicide is a difficult topic to talk about, it’s important to understand it and how to play a role in preventing it if possible, said Paula Allen, global leader and SVP, research and holistic well-being at LifeWorks, which offers individual , social, financial and mental well-being as well as employee support advisory services. People who know someone who has died by suicide often believe they could have done something to prevent it. “Suicide is a result of extreme despair and extreme pain associated with mental health,” Allen explained. “Even if you are a healthcare professional, it is not always possible to prevent this outcome.” One of the things that organizations, society and individuals have to deal with is stigma. “When people start talking about suicide, when they start obsessing about death … those are the final stages,” Allen explained. “Before that, you can start to see changes in people’s behavior, like more withdrawn, reckless, and more alcohol and drug use…But from the beginning, one of the things when people feel mental distress, most of the time we keep it for ourselves, most of the time, due to stigma, we don’t ask for help early.” It is important for organizations to know how to handle these situations. “We want to make sure that people who are suffering don’t feel that sense of isolation, that there’s dialogue that talks about mental health in a way that’s not stigmatizing, that there’s reminders around the services that are available, that there’s that opportunity for early intervention before people start to feel this sense of intense pain and hopelessness,” Allen said. LifeWorks is hosting a webinar on Depression and Suicide: Creating Hope Through Action today (September 7) with Mark Henick. His TEDx talk, Why We Choose Suicide, is one of the most popular in the world. Follow the author on Twitter @DCN_Angela.