Sunday, November 29, 2009

Suicide Levels & Help Services Must Be Tackled


If the amount of people that are dying by suicide were happening through any other method, the whole country would be up in arms. If a foreign power had come to our shores and were killing over 600 people a year - there would be an international outcry. Look at the re-action to the swine-flu pandemic - and even at its' worst, the numbers who are expected to lose their lives come nowhere near the numbers who are currently dying by suicide. Something has got to be done.


I have read with despair in todays' Sunday newspapers the stories of several very very young people - as young as 12 years old - who have chosen suicide in the last few weeks and months. Yet it continues to be ignored as a problem at National level. We have to tackle this issue head on if we don't want to lose increasing numbers of young people and indeed - people of all ages.


Perhaps there is a sentiment at official level that suicide is such a personal issue that no national strategies could reduce it. This is a fallacy. There is an awful lot that could and should be done to lower the numbers of those who are opting for suicide. Many in our communities have been voices in the wilderness for a long time now pleading for something to be done, but they remain just that: voices in the wilderness. There seems to be no imperative to tackle suicide. Better roads and rules reduces road deaths: what solutions or rules could reduce suicide?


Well I'm no expert but I do have limited insight having been involved with Waterford Area Partnership and their efforts to draw up and implement a suicide prevention strategy for the city with partner agencies. I Chaired, as part of that process, a public meeting, where a surprisingly large and vocal and much more informed than me turnout detailed with searing honesty, the short-comings in the current system and how it might be improved.


One way that stood out in my mind (and I'm para-phrasing) would be for many in the psychiatric services to come out of the dark-ages and start offering a real service to their clients. Story after story detailed the deficiencies in the service provided by many so-called professionals. Many seemed content to medicate constantly with no hope of improvement in their clients mental health and many were also completely opposed to any other form of treatment. Several of those in attendance detailed how their psychiatrists insisted that if their patients sought any other form of (complimentary) treatment, say perhaps counselling, that they were told they needn't bother coming back! There was a litany of short-comings detailed - most specifically at the HSE.


In fairness, staff from the HSE Suicide Prevention Office attended that night and listened and one can only hope that the message was unequivocally brought back to those seemingly high and mighty professionals who were so excoriated by those for whom they were quite simply not providing a good, effective or even adequate service.


This is not even to go into details of out-of-hours services that should be available or services specific to certain vulnerable groups such as, say teenagers.


Suicide, is without doubt a most difficult area. It needs to be spoken about but not in such a way as to promote it. People who have taken their own lives by suicide need to be remembered and celebrated - without celebrating their choice to die by suicide. It is an area riven with risks and sensitivities.


My heart goes out to the many people, families and caring doctors and professionals who try their best, in a very difficult area, to do the best they can. But as a society we need to deal with this issue. We need the government to prioritise investment in suicide prevention. We need the HSE to ensure that their professionals are constantly provided with training and support in the most appropriate and up-to-date methods of treating people. We need openness and accountability in a very hidden and sad area. We need to throw light into this dark corner.


The one thing we cannot do, is turn a blind eye when 12 year olds are taking their own lives. The one thing we cannot do is believe that there is nothing we can do. We cannot allow people to think that they are not the most valuable things we have in our society - despite debts, mental illness, stress, depression, bullying or any of the many things that can push people over the edge.


If there's one thing that last weeks floods have shown us, it is that a sense of neighbourliness, of caring and of community is not too far under the surface in Ireland. I hope that now that those things have been re-awakened in us, we won't wait until the next disaster to put them into action again.


I hope that that we, as a society, will continue to offer that helping hand to our neighbour and will help to re-build our society with the foundations that really matter. Not money and property. But people and community.

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