Outdated suicide laws to be amended

Nov 10, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – During the opening of the Guyana Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference on Monday, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony stated that outdated suicide laws will soon be amended.

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony.

During his address at the opening of the three-day conference, Dr. Anthony first highlighted that most of Guyana’s laws are outdated. In fact, the Minister stated that the law goes back to the time of the British and even in the 1930s and noted the part which states that if you attempt suicide in Guyana, you can be jailed for at least two years.
According to Section 97 of the Criminal Law Offences Act Chapter 8:01, anyone who attempts to commit suicide shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and liable to imprisonment for two years.
However, according to the Health Minister, “We have not used it for a while, but from the stats you have seen for every person who committed suicide, there are at least 20 persons who would have attempted suicide. So technically if we have 147 persons who died of suicide over the last year, then multiply that by 20, you can see how many people would have ended up in jail.”
Dr. Anthony disclosed that, for the past four years, there were discussions in the National Assembly when the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) was seeking to raise suicide awareness, but was unsuccessful.
The Mental Health and Well-Being Conference is a collaborative effort among the Government of Guyana; the US-based National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Health; and PAHO, with assistance from Columbia University.
According to reports, the Government has successfully completed the initial draft of the proposed new Mental Health Act, which will replace the previous one of 1930.
It was outlined in the Mid-Year Report of the Ministry of Finance, that the draft bill will address areas, such as procedures of mental healthcare not requiring consent by individuals, psychosurgery, electroconvulsive therapy, establishment of a community mental health service model, among others, and is presently under review by experts and stakeholders.
In terms of integration of mental health services across health centers, the community health model will be used.
Moreover, in September, Minister Anthony had stated that a more robust system is needed to help identify depression, which he believes will help reduce the country’s suicide rate.
He had stated that depression is the leading cause of suicide in this country, and that it often goes undiagnosed at the primary healthcare level and, as such, depression should be the primary focus for suicide prevention to tackle the issue in a more systemic way.
This led to the Minister disclosing that, “We need to build a more robust system, where, if people come to our healthcare facilities, that we are able to detect depression, which is one of the precursors for people committing suicide.”

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