This is a terrible time for this. Mental Health is underfunded in this country and the fact that the government is to do this is highly annoying. This is aswell a highly stressful time for people with job losses and wage cuts and higher taxes meaning people are under pressure and things will only get worse.
According to Dan Neville TD, the Fine Gael Spokesperson with special responsibility for mental health said
Research into suicide since the 1890s shows that there is an increase in suicide rates and mental illness during times of economic recession. The Minister for Health and the HSE should be responding to this need in the present economic crisis. They are doing the opposite and justifying it on the back of saving a relatively small amount of money
He hits the nail on the head when he says "Government cutbacks in this area at a time of financial crisis amounted to a decision to save money at the expense of lives."
It is well known and documented that suicide rates increase during recessions, especially if foreclosures are on the increase. As deputy Neville says,
The high rate and threat of home foreclosures is of concern. For most Irish, our homes are our primary investment and the locus of our identities and social support systems. When combined with the loss of employment, home loss or the threat of home loss, has been found to be one of the most common economic strains associated with suicides
Rising unemployment will see a rise in suicide rates, that is a well known and documented fact. Deputy Neville points out the Kelleher/Daly Cork Study in the 1980s, in which two thirds of the men who took their life, were out of work at the time.
As usual the Government will blame the economic crisis for all this, but just like the attempted cut in the disability area in the budget was reversed because of the paltry savings, this should be reversed aswell!
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Government would love if there were less people to draw the dole in Ireland. And less "cribbers and moaners" to worry about.
ReplyDeleteShould we really be that upset? A 12.5% cut doesn't bother me that much - 'Suicide Prevention' is a little late in the game for intervention, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteA broader strategy for mental health would keep people from getting to the stage where they decide to kill themselves, then half-assedly attempting and troubling our strained health system.
What might work even better would be if we showed people how to kill themselves efficiently, eliminating the cost of expensive hospital procedures to save lives that have already been given up on. That's the kind of imagination that our government sadly lacks.
Sully might find this article interesting, I only read it today myself.
ReplyDelete[Man wins £90,000 after suicide bid]
Gamma - Ohh.... not going there
ReplyDeleteSully - Suicide prevention is important and is part of a wider startegy for Mental Health. There are vunerable groups out there and they need to be looked after and cutting funding to groups is not the way to do it
Nice one Gamma! Quite propitious timing!
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the NHS would be better off if this guy had succeeded in topping himself, and I'd be inclined to say that his family would be too. Rather than mourning him in the short term, they're still putting up with his shit.
Stephen, I appreciate that suicide is an emotive subject, and I do understand that it is a symptom of mental health, but from my experience with mental-health organisations, I've seen how they haemorrhage money by mollycoddling these dejected fucks who only then get to propagate their misery.
In belt-tightening season, I see it as no shame that they're cutting costs. Look at it from an evolutionary point of view - natural selection would surely mandate that the suicide gene would die out eventually if we stopped reviving the litigious cunts.
Sully, as you can see from that article he was 3 times the correct dosage. So he was only right to sue.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is belt-tightening season and all that should we really be turning our backs on people who need help? Should we stop being good smaritans and leave people to their own devices? Do you agree with Margeret Thatcher that there is no such thing as Sociey? As that is what you are basically saying.
We have a duty to look after those in our community, no matter what they are suffering from.
I should probably start by admitting that I don't subscribe to the notion that 'every life is sacred', so while I feel that everything should be done to look after those in our society, a cost/benefit analysis wouldn't hurt either.
ReplyDeleteI know that it's a rather cheap rhetorical device, but you brought it up yourself - imagine the good that could be done if, instead of some miserable suicidal cunt getting £90,000, it was spent on the poor fuckers who are fighting for their lives every day, not tasting a morsel of the dignity and privilege we wallow in.
Invest the money into those that will contribute once they're the same footing as the rest of us, and stop interfering with natural selection!
I had a response written but a cookie error deleted it.... I think while ignoring the case raised by Gamme (which is a case of Medical Negligence rather then failed suicide). This is more about combating suicides that can be prevented like the majority of youth suicides, which I have unfortunately have had contact with. There are groups out there who do great work in this area and cutting funds certainly wont help! All that helps is the Governments Balance sheet and even then, not by that much!
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