Govt plans suicide reduction
Govt plans support system to curb suicide rate
"With the number of suicides last year reaching 30,000 for the seventh straight year, it is imperative that the government establish a system to provide psychiatric help for people who have attempted suicide to prevent them from doing so again, specialists said.
"Attempted suicides might leave the hospital with their physical scars healed, but the mental scars remain," says Yukiko Nishihara of the Tokyo Suicide Prevention Center. "We must do something to help them."
Estimates show there are 10 to 20 times more people that have attempted suicide than those who have successfully committed it. That group is also hundreds of times more likely to actually end up committing suicide than the general population.
A 2002 proposal by a 20-member panel of experts established by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to devise measures to prevent suicide pointed out the importance of cooperation between psychiatrists and emergency treatment centers.
Many hospitals contact mental health professionals when an attempted suicide is brought in, but there are a large number of general hospitals without a psychiatric department. The reality is that the treatment attempted suicides receive, and whether they obtain treatment to prevent future attempts, varies between hospitals.
Takashi Hosaka, professor of medicine at Tokai University, stressed that "a psychiatrist should be involved in treatment from the time [an attempted suicide] is brought into the hospital."
Even in a situation where the patient is unconscious, the psychiatrist can start to formulate a treatment by talking to the family or friends who accompanied the attempted suicide to the hospital, Hosaka said.
However, some critics have said few psychiatrists are doing enough to help patients who have attempted to kill themselves.
Tadafumi Kusaka, a psychiatrist and director of Chiba Lifeline, said: "Many psychiatrists are busy seeing outpatients, and they have little time to speak with [hospitalized] patients. What's needed are caseworkers versed in depression and other problems to offer support for the patients."
This fiscal year, three years after the panel issued its proposal, the ministry is finally going to start taking measures to address this problem.
One of the core elements of the ministry's plan--a five-year study focusing on strategies for dealing with suicide-related depression--is the establishment of a support system for the attempted suicides.
A psychiatric checkup on attempted suicides brought into a hospital will be included, in the hope that repeated decisions about what kind of support works best will help curb the number of suicides in the future.
The government will start soliciting researchers and hospitals to participate in the study.
The research will be conducted at model hospitals, where emergency personnel and psychiatrists can work in cooperation.
Issues of how to provide support to hospitals where there is no psychiatrist on staff and limited cooperation between departments must be taken into consideration.
The ministry has said it will strive to reduce the number of suicides to less than 22,000 annually by 2010. To reduce the suicide rate, the government must use the research results in conjunction with a support system and secure the necessary human resources within the medical industry."
Yomiuri Shimbun, June 10th, 2005
"With the number of suicides last year reaching 30,000 for the seventh straight year, it is imperative that the government establish a system to provide psychiatric help for people who have attempted suicide to prevent them from doing so again, specialists said.
"Attempted suicides might leave the hospital with their physical scars healed, but the mental scars remain," says Yukiko Nishihara of the Tokyo Suicide Prevention Center. "We must do something to help them."
Estimates show there are 10 to 20 times more people that have attempted suicide than those who have successfully committed it. That group is also hundreds of times more likely to actually end up committing suicide than the general population.
A 2002 proposal by a 20-member panel of experts established by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to devise measures to prevent suicide pointed out the importance of cooperation between psychiatrists and emergency treatment centers.
Many hospitals contact mental health professionals when an attempted suicide is brought in, but there are a large number of general hospitals without a psychiatric department. The reality is that the treatment attempted suicides receive, and whether they obtain treatment to prevent future attempts, varies between hospitals.
Takashi Hosaka, professor of medicine at Tokai University, stressed that "a psychiatrist should be involved in treatment from the time [an attempted suicide] is brought into the hospital."
Even in a situation where the patient is unconscious, the psychiatrist can start to formulate a treatment by talking to the family or friends who accompanied the attempted suicide to the hospital, Hosaka said.
However, some critics have said few psychiatrists are doing enough to help patients who have attempted to kill themselves.
Tadafumi Kusaka, a psychiatrist and director of Chiba Lifeline, said: "Many psychiatrists are busy seeing outpatients, and they have little time to speak with [hospitalized] patients. What's needed are caseworkers versed in depression and other problems to offer support for the patients."
This fiscal year, three years after the panel issued its proposal, the ministry is finally going to start taking measures to address this problem.
One of the core elements of the ministry's plan--a five-year study focusing on strategies for dealing with suicide-related depression--is the establishment of a support system for the attempted suicides.
A psychiatric checkup on attempted suicides brought into a hospital will be included, in the hope that repeated decisions about what kind of support works best will help curb the number of suicides in the future.
The government will start soliciting researchers and hospitals to participate in the study.
The research will be conducted at model hospitals, where emergency personnel and psychiatrists can work in cooperation.
Issues of how to provide support to hospitals where there is no psychiatrist on staff and limited cooperation between departments must be taken into consideration.
The ministry has said it will strive to reduce the number of suicides to less than 22,000 annually by 2010. To reduce the suicide rate, the government must use the research results in conjunction with a support system and secure the necessary human resources within the medical industry."
Yomiuri Shimbun, June 10th, 2005
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