BELFAST BRIEFING:COULD THE lingering effects of the recession in the North be making people ill? According to a paper published in the latest issue of the Ulster Medical Journal, it is reasonable to assume that it might.

Local experts say there is extensive evidence that unemployment and the threat of unemployment have “adverse consequences” for your health.

According to the authors of the paper, which discusses the health implications of a financial crisis, “health is at risk in times of rapid economic change, in both booms and busts”.

But they also say the impact of the economic downturn is being experienced in Northern Ireland on “an entirely different scale from usual economic swings”.

David Stuckler, Sanjay Basu, Marc Suhrcke and Martin McKee argue that the economic health of everyone in the North, from retired people living on their savings to families who had once enjoyed the advantages of cheap credit, is suffering.

“Even those who remain in employment cannot be complacent, knowing that jobs no longer implicitly include lifetime employment guarantees,” they warn.

The authors examine what they believe were the three major international economic crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression; the post-Communist depression; and the east Asian financial crisis of the 1990s.

In the context of the “experiences of the past”, they believe the impact of an economic downturn on health “depends on the extent to which people are protected from harm”.

Stuckler, Basu, Suhrcke and McKee state: “Three issues are relevant: exposure to risk factors; social cohesion (informal welfare); and social protection (formal welfare).”

They examine these issues in the context of the health of people living in the North during a downturn, and their prognosis is stark against the backdrop of proposed public expenditure cuts.

They conclude that “investment in health systems feeds into sustained benefits not only in health but also in economic growth”.

In their opinion, governments should invest in the health of the population as they do in education and infrastructure.

“Crucially, for Northern Ireland, this does not mean business as usual.

“There is a need to make the best possible use of what is likely to be a diminishing pool of public finance, given that it accounts for a much higher proportion of total economic activity than in other parts of the UK,” the authors warn.

They are far from lone voices in the debate about how the downturn is affecting people’s health.

The trade union Unison recently found that employees who took part in a restructuring process at work were 2.5 per cent more likely to get ill.

Unison said employees who lost their jobs and survivors of the restructuring process were equally affected.

Dr Greg Thomson from Unison said that while restructuring was common during a recession, workers should be treated as fairly as possible.

“Restructuring can also have an impact on the family and friends of those affected as . . . relocation . . . [may be] the only option . . . This can be expensive, lonely and disruptive,” Thomson says.

The trade union is encouraging employers to adopt its five-point plan before they embark on a restructuring process. It says companies should:

1) be open about any proposed restructuring and consult properly;

2) give employees access to counselling;

3) treat all workers fairly and transparently, and compensate properly those who lose their jobs;

4) take into account the possible negative side effects of restructuring;

5) ensure lifelong learning is available to help workers find other jobs more easily.

According to Unison, companies can fail to understand that a restructuring process can pose more problems than it is worth.

“An organisation’s efficiency also suffers, with increased absences, rising injury and accident rates, and a variety of depressive disorders,” the trade union warns.

This is underlined by the experiences at France Telecom, which owns mobile-phone company Orange. Unions say restructuring and work-related stress issues are to blame for 24 employees of the French telecoms group taking their own lives since last year.

Last week, the man who had set out to reform the former state-owned monopoly, Louis-Pierre Wenes, France Telecom’s deputy chief executive, resigned from his position because of the suicides.

A few days later, French minister for labour Xavier Darcos announced an emergency plan to prevent workplace stress and urged French companies to get involved in the process.

In the current climate perhaps it might be a good time for companies in the North to consider how they could reduce stress at work and in some way ease the economic blues that many of their employees are likely to be battling with at this difficult time.