Dear Editor,
One of life’s great truisms may be that happy people do not kill themselves. In Guyana our suicide rate is astronomically high and deserves attention and action, though both have been inexplicably absent from the powers that be.
The ruling PPP/C is silent on this issue, and the political opposition is not pushing for the establishment of a commission to investigate the problem.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Guyana suffers 24.4 suicides per 100,000 persons per year, the highest rate in the Caribbean. We have between 150 and 200 suicides per year in a population of far less than a million persons. This is not only unacceptable, but a public health and social tragedy. The majority of deaths occur in Regions 6 and 2.
According to the Inter-national Association of Suicide Prevention there are one million suicides annually worldwide, which translates to a death every forty seconds.
We cannot just dismiss suicide as stupid or irrational behaviour by one person. Evidently, a national problem exists that transcends individual tendencies and makes Guyana the focus of international attention, again, for a negative reason. Clearly, we have a problem.
I urge the government to immediately convene a commission to gather data and investigate this national crisis, analyse the causes of the problem, make recommendations to remedy the matter, and follow up on the issue as required.
I call on the political opposition entities, the AFC and APNU, to make this a priority. This is not a matter of potholes on the street or politicians dancing inappropriately; this issue is about lives that are being lost. And we do not even know why.
We must wake up, realise that we have a major problem, find the causes and remedy the situation before more persons lose their lives.
Yours faithfully,
Mark DaCosta
