Community & Business
27 October, 2021
Mental health wins for Mareeba doctor
SPURRED on by the passing of her GP, mentor and friend Dr Mark Bestmann, Mareeba local Tahnee Bridson established the Hand-n-Hand Peer Support program, receiving two awards for both her and her programs work.
Tahnee was born and raised in Mareeba with Dr Bestmann as her family GP like many other families in Mareeba, even doing her placements at the Mareeba Medical Clinic where he worked.
After Dr Bestmann’s passing, Tahnee established her new volunteer driven program Hand-n-Hand Peer Support at the start of 2020.
Hand-n-Hand Peer Support is a program to support doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, all who are at a higher risk of burn-out and suicide.
“Dr Bestmann was my GP growing up and also my parents GP and then also became my mentor when I did placement with him as a medical student,” Tahnee said.
“When we lost him to suicide that was the first realisation that mental health was a really big problem in doctors and healthcare workers.
“From there my interest grew and I took on the role in seeing how I could help promote doctors and healthcare workers accessing their own mental health support.”
“Encouraging people to speak out rather than hide it to stop us from losing more colleagues to suicide.”
Tahnee herself received the Jeff Cheverton Individual Award in the QLD Mental Health Week Achievement Awards for establishing her program while Hand-n-Hand Peer Support received the Jude Bugeja Peer Experience Award.
Receiving these awards came as a surprise to Tahnee, she never expected that both herself and her program would be successful in receiving the awards.
“It’s really unexpected, I thought it was really nice that we were nominated but I didn’t expect that we would win,” she said.
“It was a really nice thank you to everyone involved, we’ve all worked really hard and putting in our bit to ensure that we can deliver a good service to our colleagues.”
Tahnee was unable to receive the two awards in person as she is currently stuck in Victoria continuing her studies. Her colleague Dr Judith Martin was on hand to receive the awards.
