General News
22 May, 2024
Suicide rate “totally unacceptable”
Tackling the number of deaths by suicide
By Aston Brown
Regional communities must move beyond narrow clinical treatment of mental illness to tackle the “totally unacceptable” number of deaths by suicide, the Queensland mental health commissioner, Ivan Frkovic, has said.
Speaking at a forum in Warwick on May 17, Mr Frkovic (pictured) said health-based interventions will “struggle” to reduce suicide rates that have risen sharply among young people and which are almost double the national average on the Darling Downs.
“I don’t think we are going to reduce the rates of suicide unless we have broad based buy-ins from a whole range of people and community’s and organisations,” Mr Frkovic told the forum, hosted by the Southern Downs Suicide Prevention Network (SDSPN), a community group established last year to pioneer this change.
Last year, 782 people died by suicide in Queensland. Rural and regional populations, Indigenous people and 18 to 24 year-olds were overrepresented, and about three-quarters were men.
Mr Frkovic, who has worked in mental health for 31 years, said society must “move upstream” to prevent people from entering the health system with severe mental illness with far reaching communities-led initiatives that prevent mental illness in the first instance.
“I can have the best psychiatrist in the world, but if I’m living on the street, that’s not going to really help,” he said. “I may even have a house … but if I’m stuck in my house and have no purpose, no social connection, don’t have a job or reason to get up in the morning … that’s going to be a risk.”
The latest national mental health wellbeing survey found the prevalence of mental health in young people has nearly doubled in the last decade. Most of those cases present as depression, anxiety and eating disorders driven by factors including social media and the rising cost of living, Mr Frkovic said. “Those things are putting major pressure on our young people”, he said. “It’s usually a combination of things which puts people on the brink.”
Analysis of male deaths by suicide this year in Queensland found half had seen a general practitioner, most of which were prescribed antidepressants. “So what's that really telling us? an antidepressant in its own right is not the answer to the problems that we're experiencing,” Mr Frkovic said.
The public event was the first held by the SDSPN. The network’s president, Maritta Hutley, said the group is focused on providing suicide prevention education to the local community.
“In Warwick [mental health] services are very hard for people to get into,” Ms Hutley said. “We really need to start making some ground level changes on how people access their mental health [support].”
Southern Downs Councillor Sarah Deane attended Mr Frkovic’s address, saying, “It’s really great that SDSPN is coming together, putting their heads together, to push downs doors and work together as a community to help prevent suicide. It’s a really important and serious matter that we need to tackle together."
Mr Frkovic said for every person who dies by suicide, about 130 are impacted. “It has a huge ripple effect,” he said. “One suicide is too many, not nearly the 800 we have every year.”
“Rural and regional Queensland needs a totally different approach. What works in Brisbane is not going to work in Warwick.”
The Queensland government has committed $1.645 billion over five years to improve mental health, alcohol and drugs and suicide prevention services.
Support is available at Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, Lifeline 13 11 14, 1800Respect 1800 737 732 and at MensLine 1300 789 978.
