Suicide Squad

[2112]

No not the IOM version of the DC comics.

As mentioned by the IOMG Mouthpiece-

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/tynwald-launches-suicide-inquiry/

Without being too flippant, the subject isn’t one in which should be used as a ‘political’ football or tool, for some of our politicos who merely ride on the coattails of unpleasant and fatal consequences when people take their own lives. Sadly with our MHKs and MLCs they see political capital to be made out of this subject. 

[TheTeapot]

Loads of suicides over here, a reasonable variation of the type of person who does it too. I've known a fair few people who have done it, and a fair few who've 'attempted/cried for help'. Getting any kind of appointment with the Mental Health team involves either a 4 month waiting list, which is very unlikely to be of any help whatsoever to someone struggling or literally putting a knife into yourself.  

Edit - as with the medical staff at Nobles this is not to be taken as disparaging about those who work in the mental health service, who are probably quite good at their jobs but more a critique of the bullshit admin and management that goes along with every government operation.

Edited November 26, 2018 by TheTeapot

[hissingsid]

I have thought for a long time that the Island had a lot of suicides per head of population.   I have seen first hand the devastation this can bring to the relatives who had no idea the poor soul involved was in such a bad place.   There must be some connection to the mental health services offered in some cases.   It is a very emotive subject and must be addressed by experienced people not grandstanding MHKs.

[thebees]

 

I was about to say "Two people I know of have killed themselves recently" but it's not just two, there's been five or six and they're all idiots. My message to people who want to kill themselves is DO NOT KILL YOURSELF! it's a shitty thing to do. 

[thesultanofsheight]

1 hour ago, hissingsid said:

I have thought for a long time that the Island had a lot of suicides per head of population.   I have seen first hand the devastation this can bring to the relatives who had no idea the poor soul involved was in such a bad place.   There must be some connection to the mental health services offered in some cases.   It is a very emotive subject and must be addressed by experienced people not grandstanding MHKs.

We do seem to have a very high percentage. 

[P.K.]

The UK in 2017 had about 10 per 100,000 pop with a ratio of 3 males to 1 female.

Presumably something like this has already been done:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263579780_The_Isle_of_Wight_Suicide_Study_a_case_study_of_suicide_in_a_limited_geographic_area

[Max Power]

I know of many people who have committed suicide on the island, several when I was at school or a teenager. I always put it down to the claustrophobic island life but most have been over a girl or something stupid like that.  

[2112]

3 hours ago, hissingsid said:

I have thought for a long time that the Island had a lot of suicides per head of population.   I have seen first hand the devastation this can bring to the relatives who had no idea the poor soul involved was in such a bad place.   There must be some connection to the mental health services offered in some cases.   It is a very emotive subject and must be addressed by experienced people not grandstanding MHKs.

Well said. Particularly the words GRANDSTANDING MHKS/MLCS.

I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic or flippant when I set up this thread, I find it extremely insulting and condescending that a Tynpotwald wish to set up a committee, when according to statistics, 10 people committed suicide in August. Sadly and however well meaning and well intentioned, the committee members we are dealing with First Class Crackpots with no real emotions, empathy or real life experience.  Coupled with the Grandstanding members and ones who’s sole aim is create publicity for their own political aims. I will add that it’s very easy for an committee to recommend that Mental Health Services be given a SHEDLOAD of cash. Unfortunately Mental Health Services have been allowed to detiorate at such a rapid rate, and there are many competing elements for a cash injection - drug and alcohol team! 

I would add that society as a whole will never eradicate the concept of people committing suicide. 

If we allow Tynpotwald to set up a committee due to a extraordinary amount of deaths within a fixed period of time, I would argue that Road Safety at the TT, and the TT races and it’s management perhaps needs both a Tynpotwald select committee, and a drastic overhaul.

 

[P.K.]

Mental health: Five people called Met Police 8,655 times in 2017

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46347767

[2112]

Another do-gooding Tynpotwald committee sitting next relating to poverty on the island.

https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/committee-to-look-into-poverty/

And there’s another Tynpotwald committee due to sit looking at the issue of care provided to leavers once they leave Government institutional care. 

I doubt whether anything will get resolved, budgets increased, but some MHKS/MLCs egos will be massaged , and no doubt some will grandstand!

 

[Declan]

Isn't any solution to this issue going to involve Tynwald? Even just to free up the funds. 

Maybe an independent enquiry is needed, or the answers are obvious to those working in mental health BUT for change to happen Tynwald need to feel its coming from them. Isn't this the mechanism to do that?

It's not right but aren't the only two paths open  - 

1. Possible change through Tynwald via this committee

2. no action. 

is there another route?

[Whatnonsence]

15 hours ago, TheTeapot said:

Loads of suicides over here, a reasonable variation of the type of person who does it too. I've known a fair few people who have done it, and a fair few who've 'attempted/cried for help'. Getting any kind of appointment with the Mental Health team involves either a 4 month waiting list, which is very unlikely to be of any help whatsoever to someone struggling or literally putting a knife into yourself.  

Edit - as with the medical staff at Nobles this is not to be taken as disparaging about those who work in the mental health service, who are probably quite good at their jobs but more a critique of the bullshit admin and management that goes along with every government operation.

The Mental Health service here and in the UK are not fit for purpose.

I have experienced both services and there are identical in that they do manage their patients, they wait till a crisis appears and then they may act

They take little notice of the careers until again a crisis happens.

The police service is also overwhelmed by the mental health crisis.

Mental Health suffers  instead of going to hospital are held at police stations to await a bed/police officers are stuck in hospitals with patients also waiting for a bed or a facility to accommodate them.

 

 

[yootalkin2me]

18 hours ago, thebees said:

 

I was about to say "Two people I know of have killed themselves recently" but it's not just two, there's been five or six and they're all idiots. My message to people who want to kill themselves is DO NOT KILL YOURSELF! it's a shitty thing to do. 

Firstly, I love Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac....I play a lot of their stuff to my young children....'Get Better' is a favourite with and for my children.

Secondly, telling someone who is contemplating suicide to not kill themself and expecting them not to is as futile as sticking a finger up your arse and expecting to pull out a diamond.

A suicidal person only sees darkness, they see no other way out other than to take their own life...they feel this way from a plethora of reasons, money, breakdown of a relationship, addiction, feeling inadequate in comparison to others and regret to name a few, and in the advent of social media that feeling of inadequacy is amplified so much more and equally in a more secupar society suicide isn't as unattractive as it once was, especially if you factor in the 'right to die' campaigns.

Edited November 27, 2018 by yootalkin2me

[Roger Mexico]

14 hours ago, 2112 said:

I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic or flippant when I set up this thread, I find it extremely insulting and condescending that a Tynpotwald wish to set up a committee, when according to statistics, 10 people committed suicide in August.

The Manx Radio report is a bit ambiguous, but if you follow the link, the ten deaths is the figure for the year up to the end of August, not just in that one month.  It says:  There have been 10 cases recorded by the coroner, as of the end of August, compared to 5 in the  whole of 2017.

The figures listed in that piece are:

2018 (to end Aug): 10

2017: 5

2016: 3

2015: 8

2014: 1

How reliable they are is another matter.  There was an FoI request to the Cabinet Office in August: How many deaths by suicide have been recorded on the Isle of Man in each of the last twenty years, which they answered by saying:

Quote

[...] in this instance the Cabinet Office (CO) does not hold or cannot, after taking reasonable steps to do so, find some of the information that you have requested. This is because the information CO holds covers the years from 2008 to 2014. This information is held because an officer within CO provided advice and assistance on statistical modelling to a student undertaking a project on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

The yearly  figures for that were:

2014: 5

2013: 10

2012: 11

2011: 9

2010: 10

2009: 15

2008: 6

The discrepancy between the 2014 figures is probably because they also include open verdicts, where it is impossible to say (for example with a death from a drugs overdose) whether the death was intentional or not.  There may also be confusion if the inquest is held in a different year from the death.  I'm not sure if the FoI request was from Manx Radio, or where they got their later figures from.

At least the Cabinet Office were helpful.  When someone asked a (very badly worded) similar request in March, the General Registry basically told them to piss off.

[yootalkin2me]

26 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

The Manx Radio report is a bit ambiguous, but if you follow the link, the ten deaths is the figure for the year up to the end of August, not just in that one month.  It says:  There have been 10 cases recorded by the coroner, as of the end of August, compared to 5 in the  whole of 2017.

The figures listed in that piece are:

2018 (to end Aug): 10

2017: 5

2016: 3

2015: 8

2014: 1

How reliable they are is another matter.  There was an FoI request to the Cabinet Office in August: How many deaths by suicide have been recorded on the Isle of Man in each of the last twenty years, which they answered by saying:

The yearly  figures for that were:

2014: 5

2013: 10

2012: 11

2011: 9

2010: 10

2009: 15

2008: 6

The discrepancy between the 2014 figures is probably because they also include open verdicts, where it is impossible to say (for example with a death from a drugs overdose) whether the death was intentional or not.  There may also be confusion if the inquest is held in a different year from the death.  I'm not sure if the FoI request was from Manx Radio, or where they got their later figures from.

At least the Cabinet Office were helpful.  When someone asked a (very badly worded) similar request in March, the General Registry basically told them to piss off.

2009 was a particularly vintage year then.