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Canadian Psychiatric Association Calling on Canada To Take Suicide Seriously |
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Written by Staff/Wire
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Friday, 08 September 2006 |
The Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) is calling for Canada to invest more into suicide prevention research and public education about mental illness to curtail what is now an epidemic particularly among young people.
CPA President Dr. Donald Milliken states that more people die by suicide every year than by motor vehicle accidents adding, "The real tragedy is that suicide occurs in the young - teenagers, university students and young adults at the start of their career, young mothers just starting to raise their family".
September 10 has been declared World Suicide Prevention Day by organizations around the world including the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH). On that day, organizers strive to "enhance understanding about suicide and to demonstrate ways in which knowledge about suicide can be translated into effective suicide prevention programmes", according to the World Suicide Prevention Day website. The theme for 2006 is “With Understanding, New Hope”.
The CPA is urging the federal, provincial and territorial governments to develop a national suicide prevention strategy under the auspices of a Canadian Mental Health Commission, which was proposed in May by the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Health Minister Tony Clement have told national groups they are considering options to respond to the Senate recommendations.
The majority of persons who die by suicide have been in the grip of a serious psychiatric illness. "At the same time we know that mental illnesses are now the major source of disability in young adults in Canada. Until we stop the stigma attached to mental illness and start treating them as serious medical conditions, we won't reduce this horrible fatality rate," says Dr. Milliken.
One of the barriers to planning programs to prevent suicide and better treating mental illness is that Canada has woefully little information about even the most basic public mental health data, such as the numbers of patients at risk, or about what treatments people with mental illness are
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