Culture shift: What has to change to overcome employment barriers

When Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM says he feels like he’s lived through several lifetimes during his almost 40 years of life, you can believe it.

The Sri Lankan-born doctor, lawyer and disability advocate lived through the height of Sri Lanka’s civil war. It was a hard place to live and fighting between the Sinhalese population – who were in Government – and the minority Tamils would continue for 25 years.  

Dinesh moved to Australia when he was 10. Here he pursued a law degree, something he wasn’t overly passionate about at the time. Feeling dissatisfied with life, Dinesh looked in the wrong places for happiness, acknowledging that he became too materialistic, which ultimately led to depression. 

Ongoing anxiety also resulted in him losing a job as a law clerk after a panic attack caused him to be late, and his boss said “Don’t bother coming to work”. 

This was before he eventually changed course for medical school, during which a 25-year-old Dinesh was involved in a car accident that left him with a spinal cord injury and quadriplegia.

“Depression is one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. People ask me how it compares to the spinal cord injury and I can say today I am the happiest man on Earth, but in those days I couldn’t find any joy in life,” Dinesh shared.

“I struggled to leave the house. I struggled at university, I struggled with friends. Depression for me was more paralysing for life than the spinal cord injury has been.

“Having said that, it’s a very different life. Getting dressed, having a shower, getting in and out of bed, relationships, everything is different. And for people with disability or spinal cord injury, suicide and depression are still some of the biggest problems. And at the same time, being a doctor, I’ve lost so many colleagues to it.”

These are the kinds of experiences many people would fit into a lifetime, let alone 25 years. 

“I remember there was a moment when I was in hospital trying to come to terms with what happened. I didn’t want to have a spinal cord injury, I didn’t want to be paralysed. I just wanted to run away and the worst thing was I realised I couldn’t even run,” he added.

“I was stuck in that situation and I felt like a prisoner in my body. But you know what? We’re 14 years down the track and I have a great life. I feel fulfilled. When I go back and think about the time I had depression I didn’t feel any of these things.”

Dinesh’s lived experience from his professional and personal lives adds to the depth of understanding he’s developed in the disability and mental health advocacy space. 

However, he’s worried that despite all the efforts by society and workplaces to tackle mental health, we have not made significant progress. 

“I don’t feel like things are getting better. We need to think differently about how we solve this problem because people are suffering,” he said. 

Workplace changes

For Dinesh, colleagues rather than workplaces themselves have stepped up to provide support. He fears that human resource departments often punish individuals who do seek support for their mental health, often worsening the situation. 

This includes one example where a staff member disclosed their mental health situation to a hospital and was promptly taken off work and told they had to sign off on the hospital having full access to their psychiatrist and private information.

“We need to find out what human resources mean because humans are the most precious resource we have in this world and in our workplaces. But often it’s the people on the ground working alongside us that will go the extra step to support someone, help have those conversations and support them through difficult times,” he said. 

“We need systemic change because I feel like they’re punishing people sometimes. We need action and tangible outcomes that make a difference in someone’s life.”

As a quadriplegic, Dinesh’s experiences with workplace barriers are obviously not limited to mental health. He faced employment challenges despite spending two years in clinical training as a medical student at the Gold Coast University Hospital.

He eventually secured employment in their emergency department, and later became the team doctor for the Gold Coast Titans Physical Disability Rugby League team. 

Yet it is those employment barriers in care settings that prevent many people with disability from securing those opportunities. And as evident here, even when they do, it’s a fight. 

Dinesh told Hello Leaders that his workplace experience has improved. However, unclear employment processes and limited inclusion beyond the physical environment continue. 

“The biggest thing for me is attitude. We need to rethink how we see human beings, especially when it comes to disability or mental health. We need to look at strengths rather than deficits,” he said.

“Data shows that when you have a more inclusive workplace there’s less absenteeism, more innovation, a better culture and you can be more profitable. I’d love to see a world where we start thinking there’s a benefit to supporting people with disability.”

Dinesh urged aged care and healthcare employers to start small and to focus on helping one person going through a mental health issue or to employ one person who lives with a disability.

“If you invest in one person at a time they will become a champion. They will support others and over time it adds up. We often try these grand plans to fight off a lot of issues, but really we can shift the culture by focusing on one person at a time,” he said.

If you or someone you know would like to access mental health support, services include:

Lifeline: 13 11 14 | Text 0477 11 14 (24/7) | lifeline.org.au
Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636 | beyondblue.org.au
13 YARN: 13 92 76 | 13yarn.org.au
headspace: 1800 650 890 | headspace.org.au