One day before World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10, 2019) was globally acknowledged, Balkaran Persaud, a taxi driver of Mon Repos, reportedly forced his 35-year-old wife Kavita Persaud and their 3-year-old daughter to consume a poisonous substance, before taking a portion for himself. According to a news report, the 57-year-old man subsequently succumbed, but his wife from whom he was estranged, and their daughter were successfully treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital and were recovering.
Just about 3 weeks prior to this incident, Sherlock James, a gold miner of Nabaclis, East Coast Demerara, reportedly attempted to cut his own throat after he allegedly stabbed his wife, 47-year-old Vinnette Headley-James to death during an argument. In this instance, Mr James survived and after spending about a week in the hospital, was charged with his wife’s murder.
Globally, the suicide rate for men is generally almost triple that for women. Some mental health professionals have concluded that this is because men are conditioned to not be seen as weak and therefore are mostly loath to communicate when they are troubled, but more likely to end their lives as a way out. In countries where mental health services are widely available, men are less likely to seek help for depression and other similar problems and more likely to turn to alcohol or drugs as a means of self medicating.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reckons that every 40 seconds someone somewhere takes his or her own life and that the annual death toll is close to 800,000. Furthermore, it estimates that for every person who dies by suicide, there may be at least 20 others who attempt it. And while these statistics are staggering, the WHO, which published them on September 2, acknowledged that the quality is poor, often because data in general is lacking, but also because of the sensitivity attached to suicide and its illegality in many places.
Guyana is one of the places from which data is not up to date. On the WHO Mortality Database for 2017, data from Guyana is available up to 2012 and encompasses a total of 206 suicides for that year. The male/female gender spread is 3:1. The age groups in double figures are 15-24 years – 30 males, 14 females; 25-34 years – 27 males, 11 females; 35-54 years – 71 males, 18 females and 55-74 years, 21 males, 5 females. Wikipedia also has global data, which it claims was updated to 2016. As is well known, Wikipedia’s information and data are public driven and therefore should be warily consumed. Nevertheless, both Wiki and WHO have Guyana’s rate at 30.6 per 100,000, which though lower than some years ago, was still the highest per capita in the world. Guyana has done a lot of work as regards raising awareness about suicide and offering help, but there is still a tremendous amount to be done.
The WHO, which sees suicide as a global public health problem, but one that can be conquered, has published at least four manuals on how this can be accomplished. The most comprehensive is a 92-page handbook in 10 languages, which appeared in 2014. It is free to download and should be made widely available. Proactivity is the only weapon that will work against this deadly ill and no country, organisation or individual can afford to not be prepared.
A high maintenance of ignorance is one of the ways in which we fail to prepare. There is a common misconception that all suicides are as a result of some mental disorder. The examples above of an actual suicide and an attempted one reveal the lie in this. The WHO handbook notes too that suicidal behaviour “indicates deep unhappiness, but not necessarily mental disorder… not all people who take their own lives have a mental disorder” and vice versa. Another myth is that talking about suicide encourages it. This is so far removed from fact that it is ludicrous. Talking about suicide – as long as this is done responsibly – is good as it can offer an opening to someone who might be contemplating it and has no one to speak to. Many people are unlikely to contact a helpline or counselling service, although they might be aware that these exist. However, they might just rethink their proposed action if they are exposed to frank discussion which lacks stigma and discrimination, even if they do not actively participate in said discussion.
Suicide is irreversible, therefore the chances of stopping it improve when the person or persons contemplating it can be reached before they make an attempt. Doing this requires all hands on deck and all sectors involved, including health, education, justice, politics and the media; entire communities have to work together, and individuals also have to be prepared to act. The popular slogan pitched to halt criminal behaviour – ‘if you see something, say something’ – would work really well in aiding suicide prevention.
Of course, reducing or eliminating access to the means by which people are able to take their own lives, such as poisons and weapons, would be a major step forward, but it is far from being the only one we need to take cognisance of. Often, hopelessness is a brick wall that some people find impossible to surmount. Sometimes all it takes is removing those bricks to reveal that there is life on the other side.
