When Ken Bayley was 19, he found himself naked in a prison cell debating whether to take his own life right there and then.
In a drug-induced haze, he smashed his head against the door of his cell until he blacked out.
When he woke, he was handcuffed to a hospital bed – covered head-to-toe in his own blood as wide-eyed children scurried past.
“Give this man his dignity,” the nurse whispered to the attending police officers, before whisking him into a private room and attending to his wounds.
With years of hard work, rehabilitation and a determination to live, the Afghanistan war veteran survived.
But many others from Mr Bayley’s hometown haven’t.
Now, he and his mates are determined to make change after witnessing the heartbreaking impact of a lack of mental health resources in their remote Queensland region first-hand.
Australia’s ‘suicide capital’
Mr Bayley hails from Biloela, a tiny town of fewer than 6000 people, located 145 kilometres inland from the big smoke of Rockhampton.
Biloela, and the neighbouring Burnett region, has some of the highest per capita rates of suicide in Queensland and Australia, with the area dubbed the nation’s “suicide capital”.
In a town where almost everyone knows everyone, the loss of so many lives to suicide has left a grief that runs deep.
The region has a devastatingly high suicide rate of 33.4 per 100,000 people – well above the national average of 12.2.
According to Suicide Prevention Australia, the rates of suicide in remote and very remote areas of the country are at their highest in five years. In these areas between 20.5 and 24.6 per 100,000 people take their own lives, compared to 9.9 to 10.9 in every 100,000 people in major cities.
Over the past three months, news.com.au has travelled to Central Queensland, the Glenelg Shire in Victoria and the Riverina region in New South Wales as part of an investigation into Australia’s rural mental health crisis.
Residents of these troubled regions have painted a picture of systemic failure within Australia’s mental health system – one which appears to be seriously neglecting the needs of regional Australians.
Fed-up locals have described a lack of services, non-existent funding and isolation, which they feel are some of the driving factors of their high suicide rates.
As a long-term Biloela local, Mr Bayley has almost lost count of the number of mates he’s lost to suicide over the years.
“The friends I’ve lost, you could be drinking with them and you wouldn’t even know. Then five minutes later, you get a call that they’ve taken their life. It’s like what the f**king hell just happened?” Mr Bayley said.
‘One hour later he was dead’
It’s 9.15am, and Mr Bayley and I are sitting in the conference room of a rural pub while a cleaner vacuums around us.
Next to Mr Bayley sits Peter Davies, a South African game hunter turned morgue assistant turned miner.
On his left sits Harley Cutter, 29, a miner who is attempting to wrangle his two-year-old daughter as she licks the glass windows.
Biloela is just 17.6 square kilometres in size, and can be crossed by car in only five minutes. The town is rich in coal reserves and is a hub for livestock processing, making it a busy thoroughfare for large trucks and machinery.
Most don’t take the time to stop, simply using the town’s roads as a means to an end.
The three men say they are fundamentally different people who may not have been friends under different circumstances.
But they met through their work in the mines, and together, they have watched mates die, cleaned blood caused by gunshot wounds and in desperate times held their own guns to their chins.
Mental health struggles have impacted all their lives to an extraordinary degree.
When asked whether they have experienced suicidal ideation, the trio respond in a chorus of “yep”, “yeah” and “all the time”.
“I had a mate that harmed himself and the cops came to get him. They held him at the hospital and then claimed he wasn’t a psych risk so (they) let him go,” Mr Davies revealed.
“He went home and one hour later he was dead.”
He credits his children with saving his own life, saying he had thought of them moments before contemplating suicide.
For Mr Bayley, it was his nephew.
“I made a promise to him when he was born that I’d be his uncle for the rest of his life,” he said.
“I went through all the motions over and over, but something kept stopping me. I knew I couldn’t break that promise.”
‘Rock bottom’
Mr Bayley left the army in 2010, before falling into a spiral of addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder that lasted more than 12 years.
“I really had to hit rock bottom, to the point that if I didn’t change my life, I wasn’t coming back from it,” he said.
“Being a war fighter, I thought I was invincible. But when it came to my mental health, it properly smacked me.
“I didn’t know how to handle it, I didn’t know how to control it and it scared the sh*t out of me. I was terrified and I’ve been in some really bad situations but my mental health scared me the most.”
In 2022, Mr Bayley was hospitalised alongside other veterans, some of whom had been battling mental health issues for over 50 years.
“There were 70-year-old men that fought in Vietnam and they still didn’t have their life together. That was a really big turning point for me,” he said.
“I was allowed to break there because I was in a room surrounded by people that had been through similar things.”
The men agree that within regional towns, social activities are few and far between, leaving room for a troubling drinking culture to take hold.
“The only thing to do in town is gamble, drink and do drugs,” said Mr Davies.
“The most social thing to do around here is go to a pub.”
Paltry funding and scarce resources
One of the most concerning aspects of Australia’s mental health crisis is the lack of resources dedicated to suicide in a town like Biloela
“We’ve had to clean up the scenes of our mates’ deaths,” said Mr Davies.
“There is at no point a clean-up team. At least the police get some mental training, but we haven’t had any sort of training to deal with a scene like that.”
The trio say Biloela Hospital is critically understaffed, leaving employees overwhelmed and overworked.
“Some of the staff are locals and they just want to do the job but they’re not given the correct tools and resources,” Mr Bayley said.
“They’re worked around the clock and do double shifts.”
There is no designated psychologist in town and every appointment is done via telehealth.
If residents are successful in securing an appointment with a fly in fly out (FIFO) psychologist, they face months to years-long wait times – which could be far too late for someone in crisis.
“You feel like cattle going through a crush, it’s just in and out,” Mr Bayley said.
“You never see the same doctor twice. I’ve gone to the doctor four times this year just for my mental health and was told my doctor had gone to Western Australia or NSW,” Mr Cutter said.
Recently, Mr Davies paid upwards of $650 to see a psychiatrist in Rockhampton, a three-hour round trip.
“Getting professional help is scary, especially for men … We’ve got this big man mentality that everything is all right,” he said.
The group believe a dedicated mental health facility is necessary – and long overdue – for the region to take steps towards lowering its suicide rates.
“It’s massive here and they can say it’s drug addiction, but the root cause is mental health. It’s all mental health and it’s not being addressed,” Mr Bayley said.
“Especially in rural towns, you need that safe space and you need trained professionals because there are a lot of people here struggling who have to drive hours to receive any help.”
Government under pressure to strengthen system
Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Emma McBride told news.com.au the Labor government had delivered $1.1 billion to strengthen mental health care.
“A key pillar to strengthening our country’s mental health system is expanding our network of Medicare Mental Health Centres to 92 locations nationwide, with a particular focus on regional communities and areas of need,” she said.
“These centres provide free mental health support, with no referral, appointment or eligibility criteria required.
“At the same time, we are bolstering our mental health system to be more connected through services including Kids Hubs, headspace and headspace Plus services, Youth Specialist Care Centres and specialist perinatal mental health services, making it easier for Australians to access the care they need and navigate the system.
“We recognise that Australians living in rural and remote communities can face additional challenges accessing support. That’s why are delivering a network of 20 headspace outreach services for rural and remote Australia, alongside launching Medicare Mental Health Check In, Australia’s first free national digital mental health service, making sure professional support is available wherever people live.
“In addition, the Commonwealth has delivered an extra $25 billion in funding for public hospitals, recognising the vital role regional hospitals play in supporting local communities.
“We know there is more work to do, particularly for rural and remote communities, which is why we will continue investing in practical measures that improve access to care, reduce barriers to support and ensure Australians can access mental health services when and where they need them.”
There are currently eight Medicare Mental Health Centres open across regional Queensland, and three more are expected to be delivered.
For residents in Biloela, these centres are located between two and 14 hours away.
Additionally, there are 18 headpsace services across regional Queensland, but similarly, the closest to Biloela is a three hour drive.
Call for action
Speaking to news.com.au, Suicide Prevention Australia chief executive Nieves Murray called for an urgent increase in funding for suicide prevention, and an increase in community preparedness.
“Often we find that particularly in rural and remote areas, it’s very difficult to get GPs and psychologists, so things such as telehealth need to be more available because we simply don’t have the professional infrastructure in those remote areas,” Ms Murray said.
“One thing is for sure, where you live shouldn’t decide how quickly you can get help.”
She said there was also a pressing need for the government to equip key members of communities to recognise and respond to people in distress.
“Certainly those formal services are important but the prevention of suicide isn’t just about clinical supports, it’s about the role we each play in asking the questions and having the skills to have the conversation with people,” she said.
“If as many of us knew how to do mental health first aid as normal first aid or physical first aid, we would be a much stronger community.”
‘Struggling behind closed doors’
Meanwhile, Mr Davies and Mr Cutter – both more recent arrivals in Biloela – admitted they struggled to find their footing in the somewhat cliquey community at first.
Leaving South Africa four years ago with his two young children and wife, Mr Davies shared that he had recently been diagnosed with ADHD, something that went untreated for much of his adult life.
“I wasn’t on medication as a child because there was a sort of stigma about it. So, growing up I did use drugs and alcohol as a form of self-medication,” he said.
“I really wanted to appear strong for a long time, my mental health felt like a weakness. I didn’t want to break down in front of my wife or feel like a burden.
“I tried too hard to make friends when I first arrived. I thought I had 100,000 friends when I was drinking but once the party ended, they were nowhere to be seen.”
Mr Cutter is the more reserved of the three, and said there have been times when his mental health forced him to retreat from the people around him.
He has struggled with his mental health since childhood, having been through many different psychologists and medication trials.
“It’s an unspoken thing that some of us are very much struggling behind closed doors. It’s hard to have a brave face out in public and around your work mates,” he said.
“When you have friends like Kenny and Pete, who are quite open with talking about their mental health, it makes me feel like I’m not fighting this fight by myself.”
His move to the town was a particularly daunting experience, marred by feelings of loneliness.
“Being isolated every day (in the mines) for 12 hours in a piece of equipment, gives you a lot of time to think. It doesn’t take long for those thoughts to go the wrong way,” he said.
He recalls driving a truck at 3am and looking over the highway thinking “there’s my out”.
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought that a few times.”
A community rallying together with one solution
The trio have since become part of a larger purpose, one that provides a safe space for Australians to open up about their mental health issues.
Two years ago, Mr Bayley started Mental Fishing, a self-funded initiative to spread awareness about mental health issues and create a safe environment for others to share their struggles.
“I found if I was having a bad day, fishing was the one thing that helped me,” he said.
Mental Fishing was born following a chartered fishing trip with 10 strangers, none of whom had uttered a word at the beginning of the day.
“By the end of the day, everyone was talking and I knew everything about everyone,” Mr Bayley said.
“I thought, there’s something here and there’s something I want to create. I just want to provide something for people to give a go and shoot the sh*t and let them know that there are avenues out there.”
Currently, the community has over 400 members across Australia – many who don dedicated Mental Fishing T-shirts.
The shirts are a conversation starter, a way for members to break the often awkward barrier of starting a conversation around mental health.
“It’s very rare that you can go out in this town and not see someone wearing the shirt,” he said.
Through his Instagram page, Mr Bayley encourages people across the country to do their own version of “mental fishing”, whether that’s playing video games, hunting or just having a chat.
“I want people to create their own trips and I want to see strangers help strangers,” he said.
Mr Bayley is currently trying to have the initiative passed as a non-for-profit charity, so that he can eventually host community barbecues and mental health drop-in sessions.
Ken’s story is the second in a series of articles for a news.com.au investigation into Australia’s mental health crisis. Over the coming days, the stories, deaths and experiences of fellow Australians will be shared in an effort to encourage reform in the mental health sector.
Have a story? Email me at ella.mcilveen@news.com.au