‘My son said on Wednesday he wanted to die by suicide. He died on the Sunday night’

‘My son said on Wednesday he wanted to die by suicide. He died on the Sunday night’

20 April 2016

A WOMAN who lost her son to suicide has asked local politicians for their opinion on mental health service provision.

Speaking to the panel of Assembly candidates in the St Patrick Centre, the woman said her 20 year-old son died despite medical help being sought after he spoke of suicidal feelings.

She said he was one of 303 people in Northern Ireland who lost their lives to suicide in 2013 and with figures recently rising she asked how politicians would tackle the crisis.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said her son’s GP practice had promised staff would undergo ASSIST training following his death, which would enable doctors to spot signs of suicide. 

She said she believed one doctor had since completed the training and was, as far as she knew, the only GP in Northern Ireland to have done so.

“My son said to me on Wednesday he wanted to die by suicide. The quickest appointment I could get was Friday,” she said. “He died on the Sunday night.”

SDLP candidate Colin McGrath said he had undergone ASSIST training in his role as a youth worker and believed the training should be offered throughout Northern Ireland.

“When it comes to finances, if two or three people died on a particular stretch of road the Roads Service would spend huge amounts of money upgrading that road,” he said.

“Yet we have people dying from suicide and we do nothing. We leave it to voluntary organisations.

“We need to be able to demystify the issue of depression. People need to feel they can go to their medical practitioner for help.

UUP Assembly candidate Harold McKee said mental health provision was a subject close to him following the experience of a relative who was turned away from the Ulster Hospital where he had gone to seek help for mental health difficulties.

He said it was important for those under mental stress to have a place to go for proper specialist care and said the UUP was working towards this.

“I know what families go through, it is ongoing night and day,” he said.

Sinn Fein candidate Chris Hazzard said it was a fact that one in four cases of ill health and disability was mental health related yet it was not one of the top funding priorities.

After losing a family member while at university, he said he believes he was depressed afterwards but was not asked how he was.

“University never asked if I was ok, the football club never asked, even the political party did not ask,” he said.

“Looking back in those years I was probably depressed. If society does not ask us if we are ok, it does not really matter what the Assembly does.”

TUV’s Henry Reilly said he did not know how the issue could be solved and said even Sweden, which has “the most elaborate health system in the world”, had a high degree of suicide.

“There are inadequate facilities for people threatening to take their own lives,” he said. “People in that situation need somewhere to go for treatment.”

Pointing out that Northern Ireland continues to have one of the highest suicide rates in the UK, Alliance candidate Patrick Browne said one in five suffer from mental health issues.

He said people in the community should be empowered to recognise the early symptoms of suicide with particular attention to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, who he said are three times more likely to commit suicide.

“We should be aiming for a suicide down to zero approach,” he said.

“Our shocking statistics show there is something fundamentally wrong in our society about how we treat members of the LGBT community.”

Independent Unionist John McAllister said the stigma surrounding suicide must be dispelled.

“We are much more likely to ask people how a relative is with a broken leg than if they had a breakdown or are suffering with depression,” he said.

DUP Assemblyman Jim Wells, defended the Northern Ireland Assembly’s commitment to mental health provision, and said resources had been channeled into mental health as politicians recognised the dramatically growing demand.

Although he said the Assembly was aware of the issue and attempting to do something about it, he recognised it may not have yet done enough.

“It is a dreadful situation but I believe all parties are taking it seriously,” he said.