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Gov’t must lead in suicide prevention

Sep 07, 2013 News

 

As Guyana prepares to join the world next week to celebrate “World Suicide Prevention Day” on September 10, APNU yesterday called for Government to make a genuine effort to address this pressing problem.
Member of Parliament Dr George Norton said that for this year’s observance Government should be demonstrating a more dynamic leadership in curbing the spate of suicides in this country.  He said that the administration’s complacency towards suicide contributes to the continuation of the crisis.
He said that he recalled back in 2000, when clinical and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Frank Beckles commissioned a landmark study entitled “The Shadow of Death: A recent study of suicides in Guyana, Incidence, Causes and Solutions” the findings aroused the government’s interest in this previously neglected sector of public health.
Dr Norton said that in Dr. Beckles’s study there had been 501 reported cases of suicide deaths between 1995 and 1999. The majority of those committing suicide were young males below the age of 35 years.  He said that data indicated that suicide was the leading cause of death among young people age 15-24 and the third leading cause of death among persons age 25-44 with averages of between 150 to 200 deaths annually.
Norton further stated that the APNU considers the PPP/C administration’s attempts to implement coherent strategies aimed at reducing and preventing the incidence of suicide to be unsatisfactory, unsubstantial and unsuccessful.
He said that the establishment of a National Committee for Suicide Prevention – NCSP – six years ago in 2007 under the chairmanship of the Minister of Home Affairs failed to curb the suicide epidemic.
“The so-called National Suicide Prevention Strategy, apparently, has been abandoned and something else needs to be done” Norton posited.
Norton added that government needs to get more psychiatric staff in the various health centers around Guyana. He said that more focus needed to be placed on the rural areas.
APNU is calling for the administration to take the lead in the fight to prevent suicide. “The Government must use the occasion of World Suicide Prevention Day next Tuesday to announce a new plan to deal with this crisis,” Norton stressed.

 

 

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