Days after Guyana was revealed to be the country with the highest estimated suicide rate in the world, a call was made for more intensive prevention training yesterday as the nation marked World Suicide Day.
World Suicide Preven-tion Day was observed under the theme ‘Suicide Prevention is Everybody’s Business’ and representatives from various non-governmental and faith-based organisations turned out at a forum organised by the Caribbean Voice Incorporated to address the alarming trend in Guyana.
The forum came less than a week after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Guyana as the country with the highest estimated suicide for 2012.
“In order to fix our problem we need to accept that we have a problem,” Dawn Stewart, a Washington-based social activist, said at the event. Stewart opined that Guyana is severely lacking in suicide prevention services and she said that there is a need for more training as well as available psychologists, psychiatrists and more social services institutions.
Stewart further encouraged citizens to take the initiative of embarking on suicide prevention measures instead of relying on the government.
“We look at government for everything but the government is not everywhere,” Stewart pointed out. She advised, “Look to the NGOs… the government is not in every community; there are NGOs in the community and there are people in the community. The government will become accountable once we are responsible.”
Also speaking at the event, activist Faith Harding highlighted the importance of recognising the World Suicide Preven-tion Day in a country faced with Guyana’s predicament.
“It is so important today that we mark this special day of suicide prevention…For Guyana, it is more important because we are cited as the country with the worst record for suicide,” Harding said. She went on, “When a previous study was done, Guyana was the highest in the Caribbean, fourth in the world. Today, we’re the highest nation with suicide as the leading cause of death in our youths.”
Harding added that suicide affects a cross-section of the nation and is not isolated to any specific group. “This is not an ethnic problem; it may be cultural, it may have something to do with our background,” she said.
A number of exacerbating factors were also identified, including alcoholism, poverty, and depression. According to Stewart, about 90% of suicide victims had problems with alcohol and she believed that stricter laws dealing with the distribution of alcohol to young people must be implemented to address the situation.
Stewart further said that there is a need for the overhaul of some traditional Guyanese attitudes, including allowing young children to drink alcoholic beverages, such as locally-distilled shandy. Though the beverage has a low alcohol level, Stewart still believes that the consumption of any amount of alcohol from an early age will lead to complications later in life.
The Caribbean Voice Incorporated NGO will be undertaking a number of projects this year to curb the rate of suicide in Guyana. Planned projects include workshops, an essay competition aimed at school-aged children, and meetings with government ministries, including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, and the Ministry of Human Services.
The group will also be working closely with various non-governmental organisations and religious bodies to render community-based support to those in need.
According to the WHO, Guyana suffers 44.2 suicides for 100,000 persons per year. This figure is almost double what it was less than 10 years ago. The majority of these deaths occur in Region 6 and Region 2.
Following the release of the WHO’s report, Minister of Health Bheri Ramsaran said that his ministry was aware of the studies and had undertaken many steps to address the issue.
