Northern Ireland News - Papers Highlight NI Suicide Risk

10 September 2007

Papers Highlight NI Suicide Risk

Despite the high suicide rate in Northern Ireland some four out of five GPs do not have specialist knowledge of suicide prevention.

The claim comes from Northern Ireland Suicide Prevention Taskforce to mark world suicide prevention day.

In an unusual move, the four main daily newspapers in Northern Ireland, The Belfast Telegraph, The Irish News, Daily Mirror, and The News Letter, devoted page space to the seriousness of the problem facing the province.

Speaking on the BBC's Stephen Nolan Show, Colm Donaghy from the Northern Ireland Suicide Prevention Taskforce highlighted that the level of training uptake by local doctors in general practice was low, although Northern Ireland has one of the highest suicide rates in Europe.

Figures place the suicide rate at almost one person a day.

This is higher than the numbers killed on Northern Ireland roads, but commentators have noted that the spending on suicide prevention is only a fraction of that spent on preventing road deaths.

(SP/KMcA)