NGOs response to suicide ‘disjointed’

Oct 31, 2015 News

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By Desilon Daniels
While suicide prevention efforts by nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) across Guyana are numerous, officials say that these efforts are disjointed. The result is that more structured collaboration is needed.

Within the past year, a number of NGOs have been established with mental health and suicide components. Most recently, the Ministry of Public Health supported the launch of Prevention of Teenage Suicide (POTS) Guyana.
However, while NGOs have individually been tackling suicide in Guyana, few work in collaboration with each other, leading some to believe that suicide prevention efforts are disjointed.
According to Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Karen Cummings, the National Mental Health Unit will play an integral role in forging collaboration between NGOs.
She also indicated that the Ministry will work towards bettering its relationship with the NGOs. However, she said, the unit will play this role only when it is revamped.
Minister Cummings said that currently there is no real Mental Health Unit. She explained that the Ministry is in the process of conducting a needs assessment. It is determining the necessary elements to go forward.
She added that the new approaches will largely focus on the Ministry’s two current strategies – its Mental Health Strategy 2015-2020 and its National Suicide Prevention Strategy 2015-2020.
“As it is, our officials are working on these and the Mental Health Unit is trying to be strengthened,” Cummings said.
As part of its strengthening efforts, Cummings said that the Ministry is working with its partners such as the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the Ministry of Social Protection, and the National Psychiatric Hospital.
However, when questioned on the Ministry’s collaborations with NGOs focused on suicide prevention, Cummings admitted that collaboration has been minimal. She noted that working with NGOs is made difficult due to the fact that new ones keep cropping up quickly.
“We’re trying to see who is who and streamline it all,” Minister Cummings said. “Currently, we know of some NGOs but we need to start at home with the Unit before we move forward. We’re now trying to address our own issues.”
Minister Cummings added that the Inter-Agency Suicide Hotline is, “Coming along pretty well” and has actually saved lives. However, she said, it would be much improved with the aid of NGOs. She stressed that human resources are always needed.
“It would definitely be better with the NGOs but before we can move to get them on board, we need to establish a structured approach,” Cummings emphasised.
This “structured approach” has seen Leslyn Holder, Coordinator of the National Mental Health Unit, making contact with a number of NGOs aimed at tackling suicide. She indicated this during a recent forum between PAHO and the media.
According to Holder, meetings had been scheduled to figure out where NGOs stand and what their current approaches are to tackling suicide.
“A lot of persons are talking about objectives and their strategies so we want to see what they have,” Holder said. She continued, “Once I have everyone on a one-to-one basis, I’m going to call a grand meeting where I’ll be inviting (Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton) and persons from my team.
“We’ll look at where they’re at with their objectives, see where they fit into the strategies and see how well we can work with them.”
She noted that the NGOs are filled with people “passionate about doing their jobs”. However, she said, “We want them to work with us; we want to work along with them. We want to be able to support them and guide them through whatever they have.”
Like Minister Cummings, Holder said that groups keep cropping up, which has proven to be a problem in getting every NGO on board. Nonetheless, she expressed optimism that a final meeting will come about shortly, to determine who will be doing what.
This grand meeting is expected to occur sometime after the Unit is revamped.
‘Where do I go?’
“Sometimes you hear so much about so many different NGOs that you’re left wondering where to go,” Jason [name changed] said.
“You want someone to talk to; there are so many voices saying they want to help, but sometimes you’re just looking for one clear voice to ring out,” he added.
Jason, 29, has suffered from depression for years and still struggles against suicidal thoughts. After years of ups and downs and even a failed suicide attempt, Jason now has a better grip on his mental state. However, he recalled that in his teenage years he had no idea where he could receive help.
“Back then there were not so many NGOs dealing with suicide so at the time I was definitely lost. Fortunately, there are more now but I think there are still people out there wondering ‘where do I go?’ and how they can get much needed help.”
He opined that NGOs needed to work together since “there is strength in numbers”.
“It’s great that there are more options available, but sometimes having so many and not knowing what each stands for can be overwhelming,” he said.
He also noted that collaboration would extend the reach of the efforts.
“Many of the NGOs are based in Georgetown or in Region Four and working together would really see them covering more ground and making a bigger impact on Guyana.” He further emphasised that while coordinating a collaborative approach would be difficult, any reduction in Guyana’s suicide rate would be worth it.
Similarly, Founder of The Guyana Foundation (GF), Supriya Singh-Bodden, believes that persons suffering from mental illnesses often do not know where to turn. GF is an NGO with a suicide prevention component.
“If you look across Guyana right now, everybody and his uncle is talking about mental health and suicide but, if you’re potentially suicidal, you don’t know who to call or where to go,” she said.
“There are all these people talking but what are you going to do? Go into the Yellow Pages? And look for whom? You just don’t know,” she emphasised.
She said that GF has tried over the years to work with other NGOs as much as possible but more collaboration is needed.
“I think all of us have a very important role to play and if we are going to bring the situation under control we are going to have to work together,” she stressed. “Ultimately, our objections are the same; we want to see our country healthy again and we want to get rid of this terrible scourge of suicide, and I think every single one of us has read enough headlines about people killing themselves. It has to end.”

‘DISJOINTED’
“I think we have thought about so many things to be done and we need to do them,” said PAHO Representative, Dr. William Adu-Krow during the recent PAHO forum. He emphasised, however, that more collaboration is needed to achieve set goals.
“In Public Health, we have a concept called the Convergence Factor; we have to make sure that all the various activities that we are thinking about doing all converge. Otherwise, we’ll do one here and we’ll do another one there and we don’t seem to have the convergence.”
Adu-Krow stressed that any implementation plan embarked upon must not rest solely on the Ministry of Public Health and must include collaboration with NGOs.
“I think we have so many NGOs. I was invited by a group to join its members in Region Two, and I hadn’t heard of the group before and they came to my office and they are also doing the same thing,” he said. “So, we have people just doing disjointed things. I think we need to galvanise everybody.”
He said that everyone who is doing something in suicide must meet and delegate tasks as well as determine what resources will be needed.
“Otherwise, we will have all of these things everywhere and I think we need to consolidate them,” Adu-Krow stressed.
Bibi Ahamad, Managing Director of The Caribbean Voice (TCV), shared a similar view to that of Dr. Adu-Krow.
She said that it was important that NGOs worked together to avoid duplication and repetitiveness in their efforts. She said that it was pointless for one NGO to work in one location then, soon afterwards, another NGO will turn up at this same location to do the very same thing.
“There needs to be a collaborative effort by our NGOs instead of having duplication. We need mechanisms in place to work together and perhaps the Ministry’s Mental Health Unit can help with that,” she said.
She further said, “We must coordinate these NGOs instead of having them working haphazardly or without a proper guideline.” She added that for such a serious issue, NGOs needed a proper structure in place before they head out and execute projects.
“The NGOs have to work together; we have to sit and talk and strategise on the way forward. If one NGO is going to be working in Berbice, two other NGOs can go to Essequibo at the same time. Things must be coordinated so we can really go out there and help,” she said.
Ahamad also revealed that TCV is one of the NGOs invited by Holder to establish collaboration between the NGOs and the Ministry of Public Health. Ahamad shared that TCV was hopeful that the Unit will be able to reap benefits for suicide prevention NGOs.
Last year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Guyana as the country with the highest estimate suicide for 2012.
According to the WHO, Guyana suffers 44.2 suicides for 100,000 persons per year. This figure is almost double what it was less than 10 years ago.

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