Suicide Prevention | Motion
18/11/2015
Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins :
That this council—
1. Acknowledges the development of the suicide prevention networks around South Australia and encourages the rapid expansion of this successful initiative;
2. Calls on the Weatherill Labor government to enhance its efforts in the field of suicide prevention, both in programs and funding, and as a matter of urgency progress the development of its 2016-2020 State Suicide Prevention Strategy;
3 Urges the Weatherill Labor government, in the development of its 2016-2020 State Suicide Prevention Strategy, to note—
(a) the establishment of a Ministerial Suicide Prevention Council by the Western Australian government;
(b) the commitment by the Victorian state government of $4.9 million to suicide prevention programs specifically for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community;
(c) the establishment of a suicide register by the Queensland state government to enable better research into the causes and prevention of suicide, and the direction of funding to programs which will reduce the rates of suicide in areas discovered as ‘hot spots';
(d) the implementation of suicide prevention training programs for front-line police officers and public transport employees by the New South Wales state government; and
(e) the development of a dedicated Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy by the Tasmanian state government.
(Continued from 14 October 2015.)
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Dignity for Disability will, of course, support the Hon. Mr Dawkins with this motion and congratulates him on the initiative and the ongoing work that he does in this very important area of suicide prevention. I know that promoting positive mental health is a mutual passion that Mr Dawkins and I share.
In speaking to this motion I would like to note a couple of points. First, that there is indeed a need to have specific strategies to prevent suicide, suicide attempts and self-harm in particular communities—to name one, the LGBTIQ community, as outlined in this motion—given the high rates of suicide attempts and completed suicides in that community, particularly among young same-sex attracted identifying people.
I would also say that there is a need for a lot more focus on other groups as well. I think people with disabilities, particularly people who may have recently acquired disabilities through accident or injury and may be feeling in need of mental health because of that could also benefit, I believe, greatly from peer mentoring programs to show them that they can recover, they can live meaningful lives, and to bring them out from that cycle of depression and the loss of identity that can come with acquiring a disability through an accident—particularly for young men who are in motor vehicle or motorcycle accidents.
I would also argue that within the LGBTIQ community—bringing it back to that—that one way we could help stop the negative mental health that some people in that community experience is by legalising marriage equality in this state and in this country.
The more messages we send to people who are same-sex attracted that they are not viewed as equal in our community and not worthy of the same rights as other people in other relationships could, of course, have a very negative impact on their mental health.
Secondly, mental health challenges more broadly but in particular borderline personality disorder or BPD is a leading cause of suicide in this state. I think I am correct in saying that as many as 10 per cent of people with a BDP diagnosis will end their lives by suicide. That is those who complete suicide and not just those who attempt it. Of course, repeated self-harm incidents, as well as repeated suicide attempts, are all too common in people with a borderline personality disorder diagnosis.
I recently attended the annual BPD conference where one of the speakers there was a woman who had lived with a BPD diagnosis but now has recovered to the point where there is, as I understand, no evidence of her still having that condition. She had survived (this is me going on my memory) I think as many as 14 suicide attempts in her lifetime, and she would have only been in her mid-thirties, I would estimate. So there is amazing pain and anguish that these people with BPD experience without adequate support services and understanding of their very genuine and very serious condition. However, there is also a resilience that can be found and nurtured with the proper support and understanding in the community.
That is why Dignity for Disability continues to urge the Weatherill Labor government to acknowledge this and incorporate into their suicide strategy 2016 to 2020 plans for a statewide borderline personality disorder service. This has been repeatedly requested by Dignity for Disability and my parliamentary colleague the Hon. Tammy Franks on behalf of the Greens and, in more recent times as well, by the Hon. Stephen Wade as shadow health minister.
To not improve the services for all mental health, but in particular a mental health condition as misunderstood and maligned as BPD, as part of a suicide prevention strategy would be negligent, I believe. We know that we have lost several young people, several young South Australians, to suicide this year alone who had a BPD diagnosis. My office was advocating for a number of those young South Australians whom we have now lost due to the lack of support available to help them recover from their BPD.
Modern medical research will tell you that it is possible to recover from a BPD diagnosis, but the more stigma there is around BPD, and mental health more broadly, the harder it is to show people that we can recover from mental health challenges. There is an old adage that I think rings very true that ‘It’s hard to be what you can’t see.’ The less support people have to go out and recover, to come back to the community, to contribute to the community, the more stigma there will be and the more cost to the state coffers through emergency department presentations, self-harm, suicide attempts and so on.
I certainly do not want to negate the human side of suicide by talking about the economics of it, but when it comes to government I think it is important, and when it comes to parliament I think it is important, that we acknowledge the economic benefits as well as the societal benefits to quality of life that can be achieved when we properly support positive mental health and prevent suicide.
That is exactly why Dignity for Disability has been very proud to call for a mental health commissioner in South Australia, one who, obviously, has the appropriate professional qualifications, but who also, I think more importantly, has some independence from the strictly medical model of mental health and can actually go out into the community and be willing to listen to people living with poor mental health and their families, where appropriate, and talk to them about what supports in the community would enable them to feel connected, to feel responded to, to feel respected and help them get out of the cycle of crisis that often leads people to the extent of poor mental health that leads them to consider suicide.
This leads me nicely to my next point, and these will be my closing remarks. I think it is really important that we as a parliament promote the reasons why people might choose to consider suicide, to sadly attempt, or even more sadly, complete suicide. It is my opinion, from the young people I have worked with and supported both in my personal and professional life, that when a person is feeling suicidal, for whatever reason, they do not actually want to die; they want the pain to die. Unfortunately, they have reached a point where the pain they are experiencing is so severe that they cannot separate themselves from that pain and they cannot see a future without that pain, and so they begin to genuinely believe that the only way to end that pain is to end their lives.
Often we hear people in our community talking about suicide as a very selfish act. To an extent, I understand why people think that, because, of course, when a person attempts or completes suicide it has a big rippling impact on their family, their friends, their workmates and their broader community, but I think it is really important to remember that for many people when they are feeling genuinely suicidal, their self-esteem is so low that they probably do not think that they are doing anyone a disservice by leaving the community.
I think it is really important to change that perception and that conversation away from one that talks about selfishness and being greedy and cowardly by attempting suicide toward one that actually understands that this is a person who does not want to die but just wants their pain to stop, and how can we support them do that and help them build a future and a sense of self that can be free of that pain, because it is possible.
But it is very hard when the overarching messages you are receiving are that you are cowardly or selfish or just need to get over what you are feeling. We need to move beyond that to a conversation that looks at suicide as a genuine issue, one that can be addressed, but addressed holistically and with the proper level of understanding about what a person who is experiencing suicide-like ideation is going through and what is the outcome that they actually want, and that is a life, but a life that is free of pain.
Perhaps with those few brief comments I will wrap up, but reiterate that Dignity for Disability strongly supports this motion, particularly for those in groups who are experiencing a higher rate of suicide attempts than is the general community, particularly the LGBTIQ community and particularly young people in rural areas.
I know that I said I would wrap up, but as I am speaking I am reminded of a friend of mine who is a very young man from Mildura. If my memory serves me, he has lost either four or five friends this year alone to suicide. It has got to the point where now even he, as a 20-year old man, says he cannot go to any more funerals in his life. He has seen too much loss and death and sorrow already at the age of 20. I cannot imagine what that must be like.
Certainly there is a need to move beyond this conversation that looks at suicide as something selfish and cowardly to a genuine response to crisis, crisis that is possible to get out of as long as we continue these conversations and have the appropriate support services within government and the appropriate conversation within the community.
