The perplexing deaths of 18-year-old Ramesh Beharry and 19-year-old Kavita Ackloo on Monday last, which followed closely on the heels of that of social activist Zenita Nicholson last week are a sure indication that efforts need to be redoubled where mental health strategies are concerned, with particular emphasis on depression and suicide.
While Ms Nicholson left some amount of evidence to be found after her death which revealed the level of mental anguish she endured, in the case of Monday’s apparent suicides on the seawall there is not much to go on. Unless relatives and/or friends are not being forthcoming with information for some reason, there is a mystery surrounding exactly why Mr Beharry and Ms Ackloo chose to die. And perhaps in the interest of closure, preventing such occurrences in the future and putting public health to work on reducing Guyana’s extremely high suicide rate, the investigation will not end at determining that they took their own lives, but will seek to address why this happened.
Guyana is on record as having the highest suicide rate in the world, according to statistics published last year from figures obtained by the World Health Organisation up to 2012. There has since been some amount of effort expended on addressing this issue, but is it enough?
Miss Guyana World Lisa Punch, who has personally identified with the issue, founded an organisation last year called Prevention of Teenage Suicide (POTS) Guyana. According to its mission, POTS aims to reduce teenage suicide attempts and deaths in Guyana through creating an environment where teens are nurtured and supported. It began by visiting schools with its message of ‘staying alive.’
Miss Punch has since indicated that POTS is the charity being used for her ‘Beauty with a Purpose’ entry to the Miss World competition. The organisation has since increased its school visits, launched a helpline – ‘GTalk’ and opened a crisis centre. Miss Punch has produced a song and video and has managed to garner meaningful support from the business community for suicide prevention.
In addition, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) launched its inter-agency suicide prevention helpline in August. It is based at Eve Leary and is operated on a 24-hour basis. The GPF said at its launch that the helpline seeks to be an “an avenue through which depressed persons, or their relatives or friends, can call with a view to the affected person receiving psychological assistance by way of counselling.”
Following that, in September, the Ministry of Public Health launched a national suicide prevention strategy, which seeks to reduce the incidence of suicide mortality and attempted suicide in Guyana by 20% in the next five years. Since then, it has announced the setting up of a Mental Health Unit, to deal with not just suicide but all mental health issues and has hosted a Mental Health Conference for teenagers from seven schools in the city.
On the surface, it appears that a lot is being done, but again the question is, is it enough? Are all of these efforts reaching the correct target audience? The problem here is that suicide and mental health on the whole were placed on the back burner during the Jagdeo administration. In 2009, then minister of health Dr Leslie Ramsammy admitted as much. He lamented that for years there had been minimal expenditure on mental health and a general neglect of the sector. At that stage, he had called for “urgent action” on suicide prevention as statistics revealed a growing problem. To Dr Ramsammy’s credit, he did make a huge effort during his tenure to address mental health. However, when he was succeeded in 2011 by Dr Bheri Ramsaran, the strides came to a standstill. Hence, the problem is now much worse. A parallel can be drawn with treating any illness. Doctors and pharmacists usually warn patients to use all of the medication prescribed for the period indicated. In instances where this advice is not followed, the disease/illness can become immune to the treatment and even more difficult to treat.
Mental health has reached this state in Guyana. Its treatment therefore needs to be much more aggressive or we will continue to mourn the inexplicable loss of our young and productive citizens.
