Jamie Summers: I had a stroke at 39 - now I'm warning other construction workers about their health

Well, I can imagine your story would land with people and I can imagine them being appreciative of their just plain old ignorance or lack of knowledge about how self-care can be so important and how that we've got some underlying measures that can show us how we're doing.

We also, Jamie, as you'll be well aware, have the she'll be right, we're okay kind of attitude in New Zealand, which serves us well in certain circumstances, not so well when it comes to health.

And you're part of the construction industry, which is notoriously known for high stress, overwhelm, and dare I say, depression and suicide.

Are we making inroads in changing that mindset where self-care is truly valued?

yeah um look i think that this has gone to conversation it's okay to have now i think mates in construction have done an absolutely an absolutely amazing job of raising awareness of suicide within the construction industry um and i think now it is it's not a It's not a taboo subject anymore.

It's something that people openly talk about.

But I think where we miss the mark, I would say, again, construction.

There is such a focus on this health and safety thing.

Health and safety is such a big thing right across the industry.

But we're only actually really good at managing safety.

I'd challenge anyone to say, what do you actually do to manage health? Because it is.

Hand in hand, the two things really are.

And I think we do brilliantly.

In fact, it's the kind of... employment laws in New Zealand govern how we kind of have to manage safety on construction sites but yeah we very much overlook that health thing I think the other thing is there's a there's probably a point in mental health again we do overlook so as i say mates in construction could not credit them all for the work they've done in suicide awareness but i think there's a that point of um burnout within our industry that i think is huge um i think there's people literally walking around construction sites like zombies right now just absolutely burnt out um i think a lot of people mistakenly think well that's you know change a career and then move jobs change jobs that's going to fix burnout and um i think especially you know through those post-covid times when there was lots of people moving and lots of jobs within the industry and the industry was booming i think a lot of people moved around and changed jobs to try and fix that and now that that it's not that easy to move jobs right now and so then people are left stuck in this rut of just absolutely down in the dumps and I'm just physically and mentally burnt out.

And my concern is that does lead to even more significant health issues.

Um, and you're burnt out.

Are you actually thinking about diet and exercise? Are you, how is your mental health? And you know, how's your financial health? Where, where's that going to take you? Um, and yeah, I think it's, as I say, when your mental health is not good, then your physical health is going to start suffering definitely.

I think right now, I think there's a lot of people burnt out in this industry.

Of that, there is no doubt.