As the cases of suicide and attempted suicide continue to rise, calls are being made to have a properly funded multi-sectoral approach to address what has been described as a crisis.
Statistics released in 2012 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) have shown that in Guyana, roughly one person dies every day and a half and suicide is among the three leading causes of death among those aged 10 to 24 years.
For the year, there has been more than one attempted suicide each day with at least five completions. There were two reported attempts on Saturday and one of the individuals died.
Speaking with Stabroek News on Thursday, Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton stressed that suicide is not just a medical issue and therefore cannot be handled by his ministry alone. He explained that government is using a collaborative effort to address the issue. A taskforce including the Ministries of Social Protection, Education and Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs is expected to meet shortly to formulate both short-term and long-term plans.
The Minister said he is hoping to have the Suicide Prevention Plan which was launched in September last year, implemented. For him, this plan, which was formulated after consultation with local and international bodies, is the country’s best hope of reducing the suicide rate.
The “Suicide Prevention Plan (SPP) 2015-2020,” the launch of which coincided with World Suicide Prevention Day has as an objective, reducing the incidence of suicide mortality and attempted suicide in Guyana by 20% in the next five years.
Though the plan underlines the collaborative approach, saying that collaboration between health and other relevant sectors such as agriculture and education will be established to restrict access to means of suicide, several stakeholders have complained that this has not been happening.
Members of the non-governmental organisation, the Caribbean Voice have in letters to the press highlighted several deficiencies in the implementation of the programme.
Meantime, opposition shadow Minster of Health, Dr Frank Anthony told Stabroek News that while the administration may have good intentions he is not seeing clear efforts to implement these. “We need to build a network. I don’t think we have a properly coordinated network and we need to amend the legislation criminalising attempted suicide and we need to do a lot more work in prevention,” Anthony said.
He stressed that unless these and other mechanisms are supported by appropriate funding they will remain “good intentions.”
“You have to put monies to these measures. Without monies nothing will be achieved. Right now monies for suicide prevention are allocated primarily through Ministry of Health. Last budget, I did not see the disaggregation allocation for mental health and further how much will be spent on suicide prevention. While there may be money allocated to the ministry, if money is not specifically allocated to that programme then you will have difficulty funding these good intentions,” he said.
