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IN SIX YEARS, the rate of suicide in Ireland has fallen by 20%.
That doesn’t mean it’s now less of a problem – rather the methods being used to reach out to people and to offer them help seem to be working at some levels.
It’s not all about the figures, obviously – there’s a life, a family and a story behind every statistic – but they can give some insight into how to further decrease rates of suicide in Ireland and what groups of people might need more help than they’re currently getting.
At the moment, the numbers tell us that rates of suicide in males is still a multiple of those in women, while experts dealing with patients say that the way we care for acute patients needs to change – and quickly.
Gender gap
In 2011, 554 people died by suicide. In 2015, that number had dropped by a fifth to 451.
Those figures for 2015 represent 76 females, and 305 males.
And that’s not a stand-alone year – rates of suicide among women fell from 24% of suicides in 2008 to 17% in 2015, while rates have been increasing in young men.
“In the past, there have been higher rates of suicide among males compared to females,” Professor Brendan Kelly says. “But the difference has never been so stark as it is now.”
Kelly is an international expert on mental health, who advises the Irish government and World Health Organisation on the protection of human rights of the mentally ill and their families through policy, law and practice.
He’s also a consultant psychiatrist at Tallaght Hospital.
He says that we shouldn’t stop doing what we’re doing, but look at additional ways to reach out to men that work better.
“We’ve the most gendered rates of suicide in Europe,” he says. “Looking at these rates might be helpful at getting them down to zero.”
Influence of Alcohol
“We really underestimate the damaging effect alcohol has,” Kelly says.
In his clinical experience, alcohol misuse in young men is much higher than women.
A doctor who helped people addicted to substances including alcohol, previously told TheJournal.ie that he treated far more women – but he thought that this could be because men were less likely to be admitted for help.
To tackle this, you have to look at minimum pricing for alcohol in Ireland, Kelly says.
Figures from the Royal College of Surgeons suggest that a woman in Ireland can reach her daily recommended limit of alcohol intake for just €6.30, and men for just under €10.
Children
But if you asked for the area where Ireland should focus the most attention, Kelly said it’s our care services for children and adolescents.
“Young people are presenting with different problems, and although the services do bring huge benefits, they can also bring significant downsides and risks.
Children and adolescents are very sophisticated, so a move away from institutionalised care and a more individual approach to mental health care would be preferable.
But there are problems within the structure as well: recruiting psychiatric nurses.
It was announced this week that half of the beds in the Linn Dara Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service at Cherry Orchard Hospital Dublin will close in June.
“Eleven of the unit’s 22 beds are due to close for up to three months because of a shortage of nursing staff with 50% of nursing posts currently vacant,” according to the Psychiatric Nurses Association.
The organisation has repeatedly called for the government to solve the staffing crisis in acute mental health services, which threatens to close acute units around the country, with already too many being closed down.
In Waterford Regional Hospital, patients are being kept in chairs and beds in the corridors of their Department of Psychiatry due to a lack of beds and staffing problems.
A Vision for Change, the Irish government’s strategy for mental health services, was launched to set down guidelines in relation to staffing and services for those with acute mental health problems.
But they’ve been repeatedly accused of not implementing it, most recently by the director of the Mental Health Reform group, Dr Shari McDaid, who appeared before an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health this week.
He was calling for the government to strengthen the rights of people who are in hospital for mental health treatment, and asked the amendment to the Mental Health Bill to be passed before the summer recess.
“…We find ourselves today, a full year since the government formed and a decade after A Vision for Change was published, with a shortfall of €20 million in the funding for 2017 required to deliver this policy and staffing at just 79% of the recommended level.”
“There’s no alternative to A Vision for Change needed,” Kelly says. “We just need to implement the policy we have.”
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We do lead the world in politicians talking crap.
@Enda Ireland: The problem here with us is that our history was ruined by informers, we do breed a lot of people who enjoy serving others behind backs and that is what ruins us as a people and nation. We can still see that in how the Dail works and how this country is run, we do not do a thing without running to Merkel, IMF or ECB behind the peoples backs?
@Alois Irimaier
I think we have career advisors in gray suits running the country, Kenny and his kind are just the face of government these people behind closed doors walk away with big pensions never taking any flack for the decisions and cuts they implement.
What is your source for this “fact”?
@Enda Ireland:
Who checks FactCheck and who cheques FactCheck?
The source is quite clear. … i heard a man with two pints say exactly the same thing.
@Enda Ireland: Skilled my arse. TALENTED
@Enda Ireland: You should travel more.
We lead the world in overpaying politicians
On a completely unrelated story. Where is the section that reviews the comments of the week highlighting the story that got the most green thumbs????? The story about denis O’Brien being called out by Donald trump got nearly 2000 green thumbs the biggest response I’ve every seen. Yet no comment from the journal. ie. WTF…
@Seymour business: Can’t be annoying poor DOB.
Or as he’s known to his friends O Bribe.
In fairness there’s not many people who believe Enda transparent government anymore.
We lead the world in corrupt politicians
Of course it’s false. Most of the comments made by fine gael are false.
It amazes me that we should try and debunk any such claim , rather instead , we have a queue of people who are more interested in getting in their FG are liars jibes. Who gives a shite if it FG/FF/ SF or the man in the moon , Isn’t that what a government should do . Ie promote us ?? Should they say we are ok , kinda of alright . To hell with that , we have a small population with little or no natural resources , we need to take any advantage or leg up we can get
@Tensing Norgay: OK…let them away with lies and corruption….wouldn’t want to upset any pocket stuffers or their supporters.
Ha ha… very good…so they’re not flat out lying to us.. they’re promoting us.. “best little country to do business “, “most talented people ” etc. while the country’s colleges have fallen off the academic scale under their watch. Sure they only have our best interests at heart…
Tensing. Maybe it’s just me but I’d like to think that the members of the dail would only speak facts and not just make stuff up. What if a foreign company decided to invest here after listening to enda speak only to find out what he said wasn’t true, it’s important that people know that td’s only speak facts and I think that’s more important than waffling out any old rubbish. I know you disagree but it seems to me you’ve excepted a low threshold for accountability in governance.
@Aoife: Tensing needs to come down off his mountain and see the breakdown of our society that FG caused by playing people off against each other just so they could stay stuffing their pockets.
FG are parasites and nothing more.
al…as parasites go, they are fairly awful yokes..but to compare them to any FG Td is insulting to any parasite. have we a word for lower than parasite?
Jesus, can Fine Tory even open their mouths without lying anymore?
Same type of spin as their British counterparts who can rob you blind while telling you you’re getting a good deal.
Cmon people, get them out of Dail Eireann before it’s too late.
In fairness, we were number one last year. Not so much blatant lies as bigging us up a tad.
We pay these guys way too much. All elected politicians should have use the Public Health Service by law and their salaries should be limited to 10 times the minimum wage……
We’d have some world class health system then… And on minimum wage wouldn’t be a bad place to be!!!
@john doe: Don’t forget the €4,000 a month in expenses that can be claimed by all TD’s…..and now we can’t know what those expenses are anymore, because Howlin pushed through a motion last year on the QT under the guise of privacy.
Let’s hear again, that great word they said would be their mantra……’Transparency!’
Bitch moan all you want, elect fecktards or children of fecktards expect fecktards or just blame the British. In all honesty do you actually give a shit or just wannabe rebels.
Skilled Labour, the party fails as well.
Irelands main attraction at the moment are the tremendous tax breaks on offer for multinationals. Sadly not available for SMEs….
Where’s my tax cut. I remained in Ireland helping to keep this raft afloat and was the meat in the sandwich between the handouts and the corrupt ones who escaped paying their fair share
I see the ghost of Blue Hugh no longer haunts The Journal office.. you wouldn’t have gotten that verdict two years ago if circumstances were the same.
Enda’s biggest problem is that he’s been caught lying so many times that nobody believes a word that he says.
World leaders in useless politicians that take the county for a ride without fear of chastisement.
Two years is normal for enda to twig what’s going on
Do we need any more proof,this clown must go.
We were once a nation of skilled tradesmen back in the so called days of the Boom. When the building trade fell apart it sent the country into a whirlwind of huge unemployment & another era of Doom & Gloom. In my home town our young 20 something’s left for foreign shores just like other towns in Ireland. Older people like myself were told to retrain in the computer workforce & some did, with a result we have an overload of people retrained in this employment & most of our young & up & coming tradesmen have gone to other shores. I was taught years ago, when the building trade was up & going the country feeds of that & a lot of people gain employment from it. Will we have the workforce to regain those years again, I don’t think so.
Liam I did a course on computers a while back and a man on it, an unemployed builder in his late fifties with hands like shovels had been told to do it or else. He was trying to learn to type but was having zero success, it was a total mismatch of skills.
@Aoife: My exact point, I’ve met some of these people over the years. Some were good at it others on an older age found it harder to cope. Back about 25 years when the training centres were called ‘Anco’ it was similar. We all gathered in a room & spent our days with a copy of the Irish Times & were told to apply for all the jobs from a MD’s job to a dog walkers job even doe some of the jobs would neither suit our experience or training, we were given a banana to train in mock phone interviews. Can you believe in that. Mr Kenny & a lot of his colleagues were in Leinster House back then.
Skilled labour…..is that labours way or Frankfurts way!!
Delighted Mayo lost Kenny Ye big Bollox Ye.
Yes, of course we do. It’s one of our main exports.
So he is still telling lies
Cmon Journal, let’s have a fact check on the classic Thomas Byrne tale earlier today
This is the second Fact check that’s sought to undermine, albeit with facts, our marketing platitudes for FDI.
Not cool, beginning to think this is a UK site in disguise
@clad: The markets are influenced by Mary and her ability to be lie with impunity?!
Well, you learn something every day.
My God! We are only 5th in the World. Awful news!
Maybe but definitely not in Politicans all we have are clowns
Shows how FoS Enda is on many levels! If we have the most skilled and educated labor force as he proclaims, then surely thats good enough reason for multinationals to be setting up and employing here and paying the proper rate of tax for availing of our highly skilled workforce?!!??!
Free the Journal 50
@Powerabbey: Is that all you got left, since FG went nosediving?…..it’s pitiful.
and “availability of skilled labour” mean?
What colour is the sky in Enda’s world?
We are years behind.
Our true experts emigrate and the ones I know have no intention of returning.
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