A sad loss

Stuff reports:

A young butcher has died suddenly, less than a week after his shop went into liquidation.

Roy Green, 38, and his wife Amanda had owned Pukekohe Mad Butcher, in south Auckland, for five years.

Green was well-known in the Franklin community and supported various sporting and charitable organisations.

He and his staff had featured in several Stuff stories, most recently for their support in donating meat for the Franklin County News Smiles for Christmas appeal.

Sounds like a great guy whose death is a real loss. 38 is so very young, and especially sad for his kid or kids.

In a video with TVNZ during alert level 4, Green said many stores like his were struggling.

“We’re just struggling big time, we need to sell meat to actually make any money,” Green said.

“And at the moment we’re not selling meat, so we’re not making any money.

“The money I do have in the bank is all going to outgoings at the moment, it’s just a tough struggle.

The shop had been turning over $92,000 per week prior to the lockdown but was making no money in level 4, TVNZ reported.

“The stress at the moment we’re under trying to pay everyone is ridiculous.

“I’ve spent nights awake in bed.

“Some nights I’ve sat there crying, wondering what I’m going to do next. It’s just not fair.”

We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions. If people kill themselves (as appears to have happened here) there is rarely one binary factor. There are normally multiple factors. That is why it is so hard to predict and prevent.

Also the liquidation of the business may not be purely due to Covid-19, even though obviously it was at a minimum a contributing factor.

But what we can take from this is a reminder that losing your business, losing your job etc does take a real toll, well beyond the financial.