Union Health Ministry Rolls Out Country’s First Suicide Prevention Policy

What’s in today’s article

• Suicide in India
• National Suicide Prevention Strategy – Need, aim, key elements

Why in News:

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has announced a National Suicide Prevention Strategy.
• It is structured on the lines of the World Health Organization’s guidelines for Suicide Prevention in the South East Asian region

Suicide in India

Statistics

• In India, suicide has exceeded deaths due to road traffic accidents and maternal mortality among those aged 15-29 years,
• India’s contribution to global suicides increased from 25.3% in 1990 to 36.6% in 2016 among women, and from 18.7% to 24.3% among men.
• More than one lakh lives are lost every year to suicide in India.
• In the past three years, the suicide rate has increased from 10.2 to 11.3 per 1,00,000 population.

Reasons

• The most common reasons for suicide include family problems and illnesses which account for 34% and 18% of all suicide-related deaths in India respectively.
• Other common reasons include marital conflicts, love affairs, bankruptcy or indebtedness, substance use and dependence.
• It is also to be noted that in approximately 10% of the suicides, the cause is not documented.  

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National Suicide Prevention Strategy

About

• The strategy includes an action framework for key stakeholders, providing a path forward for preventing suicides.
• This will provide guidance to every stakeholder for setting targets, implementing, monitoring and taking corrective actions, to attain the aim of the strategy.
• The country’s first National Suicide Prevention Strategy has been developed with an aim to synthesise stakeholder efforts with the motto of ‘energise to synergise’.

Aim

• The overall vision of the document is to create a society, where people value their lives and are supported when they are in need.
• It aims at reducing suicide mortality by 10% in the country by 2030.
• The strategy also aims at developing community resilience and societal support for suicide prevention and reducing suicide behavior.

Key elements of the policy

• Ministries/institutions involved
  • Ministries involved in implementing the strategy are Agriculture, Home Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, Social Justice and Empowerment, Education, Labour, Women and Child Development, Information Technology, Youth Affairs and Sports.
  • The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) will also play an anchoring role, offering support to the implementation.
• Reducing easy access to means of suicide
  • The strategy is focused at reducing easy access to means of suicide, for instance, pesticides.
• Time-bound action plan and data collection
  • A time-bound action plan has also been laid out by the government.
  • It has offered commitments:
    • To establish effective surveillance mechanisms for suicide prevention in the next three years,
    • To establish psychiatric OPD that provide suicide prevention services, through the district mental health plan in all the districts within the next five years, and
    • To integrate mental well-being curriculum in all educational institutes within the next eight years.
  • It focuses on strengthening data collection on suicide and attempts to suicide.
• Stigma reduction
  • Reducing stigma is one of the huge components, as it is seen as a hurdle in the process of seeking counseling and treatment options.
  • It tends to leverage the media in order to spread awareness and de-stigmatize mental health, and promote responsible media reporting of suicide.