 Runners at the finish of the Out of the Blues relay run On Saturday 21st May a group of over 40 runners, including 12 Morpeth Harriers, completed a relay run from Carlisle to Newcastle. The relay was to launch and raise funds for a new charity “Out of the Blues”. The charity has been set up by the Northern Centre for Mood Disorders which is a collaboration between Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Trust and Newcastle University. Out of the Blues aims are to raise money to support research into the causes and treatment of mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder. The relay started at 8am outside the Sands centre in Carlisle and finished at around 6.45 pm outside the Baltic Flour Mill on the Gateshead side of the Millenium Bridge. The team was made up of a mixture of people who have suffered from a mood disorder, clinicians who help people with mood disorders, researchers and those simply interested in seeing improvement in the treatment of these dreadful disorders. The chances of suffering from depression during your life time are around 1 in 5. It is a devastating illness that affects every aspect of a person’s life and causes more disability than cancer. People who suffer from a depressive illness have a 15 times increase risk of suicide. Depression also has a massive impact on society being the leading cause of disability payments in the UK. For all of these reasons one might expect research into its causes and treatment to be well funded. However this is not the case. For every patient with cancer around £1500 is spent on research. However, for every person with a mental illness it is just £9.75. While the general public donate £2.75 for every £1 spent on research into cancer by the government, the figure for mental illness is just 1/3 of a penny. Out of the Blues aim is to raise public awareness of this massive inequality of funding. So far the Out of the Blues relay has raised over £2000. To find out more go to: www.mood-disorders.co.uk and to donate: https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/5000campaign Morpeth Harriers taking part in the relay run were Tony Lewis Paul Banks Andrew Hughes Mike Stevens Ed Hillier Damian Foster Pam Woodcock Carol Parry Sue Smith Clare Walker David Watson Hamish McAllister-Williams  Comments are closed.
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