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| Kathmandu, Sunday April 13, 2003 Chaitra 30, 2059. |
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Counselling may help curb
suicide attempts
By Pragya Koirala
KATHMANDU, April 12 : Seventeen-year-old Sumita
(name changed) was brought to hospital after she consumed some unknown tablets. She said
that she had taken this step as she was pressurised by her family to find employment.
Similarly, Sita (name changed), 42, in hospital
for the last 12 days, had also attempted to commit suicide by taking poison. She had an
alcoholic husband and was facing social and economic problems.
"Cases of suicide are increasing, with
maximum suicides resulting from hanging," said Binod Singh, Superintendent of Police
at the Crime Investigation Department.
According to the data received from police
sources, in this fiscal year there have already been 38 suicides by hanging and 9 by
poisoning. 3 of them were due to financial causes, 3 due to prolonged illness, 3 in a fit
of rage and others were for reasons unknown.
"In most cases the reasons for suicide
remains unknown," added SP Singh.
Singh informed The Kathmandu Post that these
days the police handle 8 to 9 suicide cases a week. For failed suicide attempts where
someone attempts to commit suicide but is unsuccessful, a case is registered but once the
victim is better, no action is taken. After 2034 BS the law for suicide has been amended,
however any person found responsible for another committing suicide, there is a prison
term of ten years.
"Suicide gestures are suicide attempts by
people who do not want to die but make the attempt just to threaten someone. In most of
this type of suicide attempt, the chances of survival is higher," said Shyam Prasad
Lohani, programme co-ordinator of the Nepal Poison Information Centre (NPIC).
The (NPIS) was established six years ago in
association with the Ohio Poison Information Centre, USA. This association has experts in
the field of poison and poisoning and they are called upon for help by almost all
hospitals, where cases of suicide by poison are acute.
According to research done by the institute, the
majority of people attempting to commit suicide fall between the ages of 19 and 39. The
main causes of suicide in Nepal are family conflicts, love tragedies and failure in
studies.
"After the age of 18 or 19, people begin to
face social crises. When much of their expectations in life are not met, the turmoil of
life gets them into severe depression and people find no alternative other than
suicide," said psychiatrist, Biswo Bandhu Sharma.
According to him, 19 to 39 years is the period
when psychiatric illness is most felt by people and sadly, among these depressed people,
66 percent do not seek treatment making the risk of suicide very high. Among the ones who
do seek treatment, 66 percent go to physicians or primary medical practitioners who are
not able to cure depression. Only 10 percent get proper treatment and appropriate
medicines for depression.
According to research and studies, NPIC has
shown that the first six months of the Nepali calendar forms the peak season for people to
attempt suicide. The SLC and ISC results are announced within these months.
"We get maximum phone calls to attend
suicide attempts by poisoning when the SLC and the ISc results are out, " adds
Lohani.
Another reason he quoted was that, this being
the agricultural season, pesticides used before and after agriculture are easily available
in most areas. Further he said that there are no regulations to control the sale of such
medicines.
"During this period of less sunny and rainy
weather, which makes the days dark and gloomy, the depression level of many becomes high
and often than not they attempt to commit suicide," said Lohani.
NPIS used to conduct counselling classes for
those in severe depression and also for those who have survived previous suicide attempts.
The main aim of this class was to find out the root cause of people’s depression and
show them the way out of their problem. "But due to financial and other problems we
had to close our counselling classes," informed Lohani.
He also said that counselling was really
necessary in Nepal where many of the people are from the lower middle-class. The
government has been doing nothing to promote these types of counselling classes, he added.
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