The media must stop ignoring suicide
BY MARK HENICK, Ottawa Citizen Op-Ed Page
September 4, 2009
On the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 25, a well known former Fredericton city councillor walked into the Emergency Room with a lot on his mind. It is not known if he told them he was going to take his own life. Whatever happened in the ER, one thing was certain: he did not get rushed past the queue for immediate psychiatric care.
Instead he ended up leaving, just walking right out the door. He called the police from in front of the hospital and, with phone in one hand and 16-gauge shotgun in the other, told them that he intended to kill himself. When the lone officer arrived on site — it was perhaps assumed by the dispatcher to be just another “jumper” call — the man placed the barrel of the shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger.
The next day the local paper’s front-page headline read, “Ancient craft kept alive,” accompanied by a picture and illuminating article on birchbark canoe making. It wasn’t until page A3 that one could find an article about an officer who witnessed a suicide. The victim was secondary — merely the setting.
A CBC report later that day stated that “Fredericton police and CBC News normally do not report on suicides. …” They made an exception in this case because the man was well known. The local paper the following day carried a front-page story about the people who mourned the loss of the victim. It also contained the disclaimer that the paper didn’t “usually report on suicides or identify the victims,” apparently for the same reason.
What both of these accounts seemed to miss are the most important questions. Why was there only one officer there? Did the victim talk to anyone in the ER? If he did, why was he not treated immediately? And the most important question of all: Why did his illness get this far without intervention? These are all questions I will be waiting for answers to, but I have the feeling it will be a long wait.
According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 121 million people worldwide who live with depression, and 850,000 who die by suicide each year. Yet, sadly, less than 25 per cent of those affected have access to effective treatment. By 2020 depression is projected to be the second leading cause of disability for both sexes across all ages worldwide. Here in Canada, 96 per cent of physicians already recognize depression as one of the three leading causes of disability in this country, according to a new national survey.
He called the police from in front of the hospital and, with phone in one hand and 16-gauge shotgun in the other, told them that he intended to kill himself.
People with mental illnesses used to be warehoused in asylums until the community treatment wave of the 1970s and onward. Institutions were closed en masse, but one important element slipped through the cracks: the part about community treatment. Former senator Michael Kirby, who left the Senate to chair the newly minted Mental Health Commission of Canada, was recently quoted in the Calgary Herald as saying “I’m embarrassed to say this as a Canadian, but we have really made the streets and the prisons the asylums of the 21st century.”
But even if adequate treatment were available, the stigma that we place on mental illness is powerful enough in itself to prevent people from seeking it.
Though they are some of the oldest and most common disorders, mental illnesses continue to be treated as secrets, as though talking about how we are feeling somehow makes us weaker. In the case of suicide, many believe that talking about it encourages it. Even some organizations push this erroneous belief.
The media will freely report on homicides, arsons, rapes and pedophilia, without any apparent concern as to whether or not it will encourage people to commit these acts or, as it is so often put, to “give them the idea to go out and do it.” Talking about suicide does not encourage suicide, especially not if you are reporting it responsibly.
The exception to the media ban on suicide reporting as stated in the above mentioned reports is deeply offensive to anyone who has themselves or has had family members who contemplated or attempted suicide. Or who have completed suicide. Saying that they are willing to break their own (archaic) norm to report on this particular suicide because the victim was so well known means one morbid, irresponsible thing:
Nobody else who dies by suicide is “important” enough to report on.
If this man shot the officer, there is little doubt it would have been big news. If he shot a passing vehicle, it would have been splashed over the front page. If he fired aimlessly into the sky, he surely would have made headlines. If it was a standoff and he didn’t shoot anything, even that would have received more attention.
But none of this happened. He shot himself. Therefore it was too taboo for even the news. Except that his name was well known, and that sells papers.
More Canadians die by suicide than in car accidents. This is a reality of the world we live in. To avoid talking about it only perpetuates the stigma around mental illness.
If someone caught the flu and died on the steps of the hospital without being treated there would be an uprising, a revolution. We are facing a mental illness epidemic in this country, one that we can’t afford to ignore any longer.
Of all the unpreventable problems in the world, this is not one of them. We have the tools; there are plenty of effective treatments out there if those in power, politically and otherwise, choose to put the attention and resources behind making them widely available. More than anything I’ve ever begged for in my life, please. Somebody do something.
Mark Henick is a student at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. He is president of the Students' Union and is the youngest member of the board of directors for the Canadian Mental Health Association, N.B., division. He uses his experience with depression to advocate mental health awareness through public lectures and the media.
BY MARK HENICK, Ottawa Citizen Op-Ed Page
September 4, 2009
On the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 25, a well known former Fredericton city councillor walked into the Emergency Room with a lot on his mind. It is not known if he told them he was going to take his own life. Whatever happened in the ER, one thing was certain: he did not get rushed past the queue for immediate psychiatric care.
Instead he ended up leaving, just walking right out the door. He called the police from in front of the hospital and, with phone in one hand and 16-gauge shotgun in the other, told them that he intended to kill himself. When the lone officer arrived on site — it was perhaps assumed by the dispatcher to be just another “jumper” call — the man placed the barrel of the shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger.
The next day the local paper’s front-page headline read, “Ancient craft kept alive,” accompanied by a picture and illuminating article on birchbark canoe making. It wasn’t until page A3 that one could find an article about an officer who witnessed a suicide. The victim was secondary — merely the setting.
A CBC report later that day stated that “Fredericton police and CBC News normally do not report on suicides. …” They made an exception in this case because the man was well known. The local paper the following day carried a front-page story about the people who mourned the loss of the victim. It also contained the disclaimer that the paper didn’t “usually report on suicides or identify the victims,” apparently for the same reason.
What both of these accounts seemed to miss are the most important questions. Why was there only one officer there? Did the victim talk to anyone in the ER? If he did, why was he not treated immediately? And the most important question of all: Why did his illness get this far without intervention? These are all questions I will be waiting for answers to, but I have the feeling it will be a long wait.
According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 121 million people worldwide who live with depression, and 850,000 who die by suicide each year. Yet, sadly, less than 25 per cent of those affected have access to effective treatment. By 2020 depression is projected to be the second leading cause of disability for both sexes across all ages worldwide. Here in Canada, 96 per cent of physicians already recognize depression as one of the three leading causes of disability in this country, according to a new national survey.
He called the police from in front of the hospital and, with phone in one hand and 16-gauge shotgun in the other, told them that he intended to kill himself.
People with mental illnesses used to be warehoused in asylums until the community treatment wave of the 1970s and onward. Institutions were closed en masse, but one important element slipped through the cracks: the part about community treatment. Former senator Michael Kirby, who left the Senate to chair the newly minted Mental Health Commission of Canada, was recently quoted in the Calgary Herald as saying “I’m embarrassed to say this as a Canadian, but we have really made the streets and the prisons the asylums of the 21st century.”
But even if adequate treatment were available, the stigma that we place on mental illness is powerful enough in itself to prevent people from seeking it.
Though they are some of the oldest and most common disorders, mental illnesses continue to be treated as secrets, as though talking about how we are feeling somehow makes us weaker. In the case of suicide, many believe that talking about it encourages it. Even some organizations push this erroneous belief.
The media will freely report on homicides, arsons, rapes and pedophilia, without any apparent concern as to whether or not it will encourage people to commit these acts or, as it is so often put, to “give them the idea to go out and do it.” Talking about suicide does not encourage suicide, especially not if you are reporting it responsibly.
The exception to the media ban on suicide reporting as stated in the above mentioned reports is deeply offensive to anyone who has themselves or has had family members who contemplated or attempted suicide. Or who have completed suicide. Saying that they are willing to break their own (archaic) norm to report on this particular suicide because the victim was so well known means one morbid, irresponsible thing:
Nobody else who dies by suicide is “important” enough to report on.
If this man shot the officer, there is little doubt it would have been big news. If he shot a passing vehicle, it would have been splashed over the front page. If he fired aimlessly into the sky, he surely would have made headlines. If it was a standoff and he didn’t shoot anything, even that would have received more attention.
But none of this happened. He shot himself. Therefore it was too taboo for even the news. Except that his name was well known, and that sells papers.
More Canadians die by suicide than in car accidents. This is a reality of the world we live in. To avoid talking about it only perpetuates the stigma around mental illness.
If someone caught the flu and died on the steps of the hospital without being treated there would be an uprising, a revolution. We are facing a mental illness epidemic in this country, one that we can’t afford to ignore any longer.
Of all the unpreventable problems in the world, this is not one of them. We have the tools; there are plenty of effective treatments out there if those in power, politically and otherwise, choose to put the attention and resources behind making them widely available. More than anything I’ve ever begged for in my life, please. Somebody do something.
Mark Henick is a student at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. He is president of the Students' Union and is the youngest member of the board of directors for the Canadian Mental Health Association, N.B., division. He uses his experience with depression to advocate mental health awareness through public lectures and the media.
