I must note the Health Minister’s pronouncement on suicide: that it is not a crime. It is as forthright a statement that can ever be and this is commendable, especially on an issue that is a serious one in our country. I wholeheartedly support such a stand.
Locally, there have been some instances of persons who have attempted suicide being arraigned before the courts, but the presiding magistrate, quite enlighteningly, reverted such cases to the Welfare Authorities.
I have often debated the serious and moral rationality of prosecuting persons who attempt suicide. Of course, it is still an offence on the statute books, inherited from colonial legacy. But even that former colonial power’s laws do not advise such action against its own citizens who attempt suicide.
It is time that this law, archaic and unreasonable, in Guyana be repealed,for it is totally contradictory and irrelevant to the situation that leads to suicide.
Suicide, which simply means the taking of one’s life, is, in my opinion, the biggest decision that any human can take. Most victims/ would-be victims would not take such a route, if they thought they had other options.   
Hence, the Health Sector’s menu of enlightened measures, such as the Crisis Hotline, is indeed the step in the modern direction of combating this critical, social crisis challenge. Persons who attempt to self destruction need a special interest and assistance to steer them from such an abyss; and not statutes that are totally incompatible with the prevailing vicissitudes of these times and designed to add to that person’s already burdened mental mindset. Why must such a law be retained? 
I sincerely hope that the Minister leads the charge for such a law to be removed from the books.