With Canadian help…
– Ramsammy
MINISTER of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy has said his ministry continues to build its capacity for responding to the public health scourge of suicide.
In a release, he said Guyana averages about 180 suicide annually and, while it has developed a surveillance system to track all such deaths, the tracking of attempts is still weak.
“We know that there are at least 500 suicide attempts on an annual basis. The Ministry of Health is now requiring all hospitals to report any possible suicide attempt case to the Ministry within 24 hours after presentation at the hospital,” he said.
Ramsammy, in the release, pointed out that the Ministry recently began a training programme for persons to operate a crisis hotline and, already, a number of persons have been trained as operators in the service.
“Over the next two weeks, the standard operating procedure for the crisis hotline service will be developed,” he said.
According to him, the Ministry is working with hotline service experts from Nova Scotia, Montreal and British Columbia, all in Canada.
The release said he informed that the Ministry is working in collaboration with Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company Limited (GT&T) to establish a state-of-the-art system for the purpose.
“The telephone system will operate on the same basis as the 911 and 912 service for the Police and Fire services. The Ministry and GT&T have already initiated efforts to establish the telephone service and we expect that this will take four months before the service is operational,” Ramsammy said.
However, in the meantime, he stated that practice secessions are being conducted with approximately eight persons from the Ministry and Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) to be the initial operators.
“We expect, as the programme develops, to train volunteers who will become part of the crisis hotline staff,” Ramsammy said.
He added that this effort is part of a comprehensive programme to reduce the number of suicide attempts and deaths in addition to the development of an advance service system and the crisis hotline programme.

GATEKEEPERS

Ramsammy said the Ministry is also scaling up a gatekeeper training programme and he explained that the objectives of it are to establish a Guyana Suicide Prevention Training Programme for gatekeepers and health care providers and Community Gatekeepers for Suicide Prevention.
Additionally, another part of the strategy is the development of the follow-back post mortem investigation, being piloted in Region Six (East Berbice/Corentyne).
The release said the goal of the pilot is to determine if it would be possible to learn more about the risk and protective factors, specific to suicide in Guyana, by means of the suicide follow-back study (or psychological autopsy) methodology.
Specifically, Ramsammy said it is hoped that more could be learned about family
history and early childhood experiences; education, relationship and work  history; mental
disorders; substance abuse; previous suicidal thoughts/attempts; past medical treatment/seeking of help; recent stressful life events and other factors that may play a role in suicidal behavior.
In the release, he said that, in a suicide follow-back study, researchers collect the detailed information needed to reconstruct the social, psychological and psychiatric history of the deceased.
Ramsammy said detailed semi-structured interviews are conducted with family members and others who knew the deceased well and relevant administrative data (e.g. coroner’s reports, Police files and medical charts are examined.
“The Ministry of Health will be working, with the Centre for Research and Intervention on Suicide and Euthanasia (CRISE) at the University of Quebec at Montreal and Syngenta, to pilot a project for safe storage of pesticides such as gramoxone,” the release said.
It added that this Ministry of Health programme will engage farmers on stricter and safer storage of pesticides, with the aim of making them less accessible.
“This should result in a reduction of the impulsive ingestion of chemicals,” the release said.
Ramsammy affirmed, too, that his ministry has, furthermore, been upgrading its education and awareness programme in an effort to sensitise the population, so that communities can become a part of the anti-suicide strategy.