Psychs on Bikes to Hit Town

DR JOE Dunn, a practicing psychiatrist in Sydney hit the road on his bike seven years ago to cross the Nullarbor some mates and dubbed themselves “psychs on bikes”.

They saw a need in regional Australia for better mental health and tomorrow they will be riding into Scone to meet with Where There’s A Will and the community to identify needs in the Upper Hunter.

“I didn’t start out to develop a national mental health charity, that was the last thing on my mind, I just wanted to go for a motorbike ride,” laughed Dr Dunn.

“In 2011 I wanted to ride across the Nullarbor and I was joined by one of my sons and a couple of my mates one a psychologist and one a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist called us psychs on bikes and the name stuck, we ended up at a pub in Kalgoorlie and thought maybe we do this again next year and invite a few more mental health professionals,” he said

“It’s nice to go and interact and do something for communities and we have a lot of fun as well, it’s a huge adventure,” he said.

“I was approached by Pauline Carrigan from Where There’s A Will and she has asked us to come up to investigate if we can be part of a community event in Scone,” said Dr Dunn.

“The meeting tomorrow will be a lot of mental health professionals arriving in a haze of blue smoke to talk and plan,” he said.

“We’ll talk about what we can offer and one thing we offer is free men’s health checks for the four great silent killers which are hypertension, diabetes, alcoholism and depression,” he said.

“Our interest is on emotional well being and I’m interested to learn about what is happening in the Upper Hunter with the drought and there are a lot of people under stress,” he said.

“As a group of volunteer mental health professionals we don’t have the power to influence government’s financial decisions, but when we do men’s health checks we try to identify are they sitting on something physically or emotionally that is dangerous for them,” he said.

“If we can desensitise men to be able to talk to someone in a confidential environment and men are often reticent to do that, but half of the time when you give them a safe opportunity to open up then you can’t shut them up,” he laughed.

“But men in the bush are becoming more introspective and more emotionally aware and meeting mental health professionals can be a very significant experience for them, maybe in five years time when they need help at least they’ve had that experience of knowing that there are people you can talk to,” Dr Joe Dunn said.

Saturday’s meeting is open to everyone in the community.

• WHERE: Willow Tree Hotel, Scone.
• WHEN: 3pm, Saturday, July 14.