MindtheHeart Canadian Collaboration: mental health care pathways for male cardiac patients

Dr. Phillip Tully’s, Vascular & Brain Health group have commenced their working collaboration with Dr. Jalila Jbilou, MD, MSc, Ph.D, (pictured above) who is Associate Professor of Psychology at the Universite de Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada) on men’s mental health in cardiac populations. Dr Jbilou’s fields of expertise are: health psycholog and community medicine, integrated care models and differentiated analysis according to gender / sex in the prevention of chronic diseases.

Dr. Jbilou has completed data collection for the MindTheHeart project, a world first on several fronts: being a psychological intervention focussed specifically on male cardiac patients with depression, anxiety and PTSD; being a stepped-care and transdiagnostic intervention, and collating a rich qualitative dataset on patient and healthcare workers pre and post the intervention.

Dr. Jalila Jbilou was awarded a scholarship to spend several months with the Freemasons Centre for Male Healh & Wellbeing while on sabbatical in early 2021 and unfortunately border closures from COVID-19 has restricted her travel plans and the Centre’s opportunity to learn from her expertise. Nonetheless, the burgeoning collaboration and forthcoming results of MindTheHeart will undoubtedly provide unique answers to help improve mental healthcare for males with comorbid cardiac disease in Canada, Australia, and other countries.   

Further details about MindTheHeart are available as open-access “Understanding men's psychological reactions and experience following a cardiac event: a qualitative study from the MindTheHeart project” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31562150/

FCMHW officially launched by His Excellency the Honourable Hieu Van Le AC Governor of SA

Ms Sheralyn Holmes, Company Secretary of FCMHW Ltd welcomed His Excellency the Honourable Hieu Van Le AC Governor of South Australia and 120+ guests to the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute for the official launch the SA Division of the Freemasons Centre for Male Health & Wellbeing on Monday 8 February.   

We were honoured to have Jack Buckskin, a proud Kaurna Narungga man, welcome us to Country. Jack is a young leader in the community who is dedicated to learning and passing on his knowledge and language of the Adelaide Plains to future generations of Kaurna people. He shared his experiences growing up as a boy, a young man and now as a dedicated father and described how learning to dance gave him his strong connection to his culture.

His Excellency, Patron in Chief of the former Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health and current Patron of Masonic Charities, acknowledged the importance of and the quality and impact of the research the Centre has carried out and how proud he is that Australia’s only multi-disciplinary male health research centre calls SA and NT home.

Professor Steve Wesselingh, Executive Director of SAHMRI and Director of the Freemasons Centre for Male Health and Wellbeing Ltd, spoke to the significance of the Centre working across SAHMRI’s themes addressing the significant health challenges facing our community – cancer, chronic disease, mental health, social wellbeing, and, as COVID has highlighted, infectious diseases to ensure a gender lens is applied to how we better understand, educate about and reduce the burden of these conditions and importantly improve on our delivery of health services. 

Grand Master of Freemasons of SA/NT, and Chairman of the Board of the FCMHW Ltd and former Director of Masonic Charities, Dr Neil Jensen MBBS FRACGP FAAETS (USA) Colonel (Retrd), spoke to the importance of benevolence to Freemasons. Freemasons are taught to be ever alert to the needs of others and to promote happiness. This centre is an iteration of our desire for a better tomorrow. “Through the work of this Centre, we see our great masonic family providing tangible help for our fellow citizens: men, women and children.”

Professor Gary Wittert, Director of the FCMHW SA Division, acknowledged the now 13 year history of the Centre and the major investment of the University of Adelaide and Freemasons of SA/NT through the Freemasons Foundation, and now Masonic Charities, that has led to the success and growth of the Centre from a handful to now more than 50 researcher. He thanked those involved and spoke with great pride of the many young outstanding researchers and students who the Centre has supported. He cherry picked just some examples of how the Centre’s research has influenced and changed practice.

L to R: Professor Michael Liebelt, Mr Robert Clyne OAM OS, Dr Neil Jensen, Ms Sheralyn Holmes, Professor Steven Wesselingh, His Excellency the Honourable Hieu Van Le AC Governor of South Australia, and Professor Gary Wittert.

The formal part of the event concluded with His Excellency and Dr Jensen unveiling a plaque commemorating the establishment of the Centre which will be placed in the Hall of Fame in the Grand Lodge building of Freemasons of SA and NT on North Terrace. 

FCMHW thanks Morgan Stanley Australia for its generous sponsorship of this event.

Press Release

Launch of the Freemasons Centre for Male Health and Wellbeing - SA Division

Press Release:

The Freemasons Centre for Male and Health and Wellbeing (FCMHW) is a research alliance involving the Masonic Charities and The University of Adelaide and SAHMRI in SA and the Menzies School of Health Research in the NT

The Founding member of the former Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health and Director since 2012, Professor Gary Wittert (The University of Adelaide and SAHMRI), says the FCMHW brings together globally recognised leaders in male health research.

Top priorities for the Centre’s SA Division include prostate cancer and pre-conception health as well as a focus on the common chronic conditions affecting men such as obesity, diabetes, depression, sexual health and troublesome lower urinary tract symptoms.

As well generating new knowledge as to the causes of and optimal way to treat men for these conditions, a central aim of the alliance is to ensure research translates into real world changes in clinical and public health practices.

“Our work to date has shown clearly that men do use health services and they do care about their health,” Prof Wittert said.

“Great improvements can be made, relatively simply, through changes that ensure our health care system is catering for and communicating to men more effectively.”  This will be a particular focus for the Centre over the coming years.

The FCMHW SA Division is being officially launched today, following the successful launch of the Northern Territory division in November 2020.

The Centre is the evolution of the Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health which was established in 2007 and maintained through a $7.2 million dollar partnership between the Freemasons Foundation and the University of Adelaide.

Masonic Charities, the charitable arm of Freemasons SA/NT is donating a minimum of $1.8 million over three years to the new Centre, funds that will be matched collectively by the research alliance partners.

The Grand Master of the Freemasons SA/NT, Dr Neil Jensen, said the new centre will build on the foundation laid by its predecessor with an increased capacity to improve male health outcomes due to a stronger, broader network. “We started at a time when men’s health was not really spoken about and it’s now in a far better place,” Dr Jensen said.

“We’re very proud of what’s been achieved so far, but there’s still much work to be done and the Centre will play a pivotal role in the future.”  We are often asked, as Freemasons, what do we do.  Benevolence and serving the communities in which we live are core to Freemasonry. The Centre is a perfect example of the contribution made by Freemasons of SA/NT particularly given the positive impact that the Centre’s work will have for males, their families and communities.  

The official launch of the SA Division of the Centre will be held at SAHMRI on Monday 8 February.