Suicide rate rises

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Noticias:

Suicides up 7.4%.

It is the main cause of unnatural death among young Canarians

The figures are alarming. The latest data provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) add up to 3,941 deaths by suicide in Spain in 2020, 208 of them in the Canary Islands, which is 7.4% more than in 2019 and the second consecutive year of increase. 11 people die by suicide a day. As the Telephone of Hope recalls, up to 11 lives were cut short "by extreme suffering, unbearable to live, and before which they are not able to find alternatives," as published by Diario de Avisos.

 

Equally alarming is also the incidence in the young population in which suicide in 2020 became the leading cause of death from external causes, as this newspaper published at the time. In that year alone, 300 deaths from this cause were officially counted in young people between 15 and 29 years old. Unfortunately, it is obvious that the agreements signed at the time to postpone these issues in the media have not only been useless, but have helped disinformation on a matter where it is important that the people around them have advice. It is true, in this regard, that in reality experts only advise against not emphasizing the methods to carry out autolysis, as DIARIO DE AVISOS has repeatedly highlighted.

 

At the state level, in 2021 the Telephone of Hope received a total of 7,793 requests for help related to suicidal issues (6,266 cases with suicidal ideation, 1,251 cases of suicidal crises and 276 suicides in progress), of which 483 calls were answered from centers in the Canary Islands, 66% more than in 2020.

 

And the data for 2022 already indicate that the increase continues, having received during the first semester a total of 4,553 requests for help for suicide issues at the state level, compared to the 3,412 requests received in the same period of 2021.

 

In parallel to the increase in suicidal behavior in the young population that has been observed in recent years in our country, also in the Telephone of Hope have increased requests for help from children under 25 years of age, with 727 requests in the first half of 2022 compared to 565 in the same period last year. Because suicide can be prevented, and that prevention goes through the information and awareness of the population, the formation of key groups for detection and intervention, the immediate attention of people with suicidal behavior, the attention to relatives and close people and the coordination of all help devices.

 

This year, the Telephone of Hope focuses its awareness campaign around the 10th of this month, World Suicide Prevention Day, on the need to build together a National Suicide Prevention Plan, uniting under the slogan Let's Make a Plan. Because to date Spain has Autonomous Plans in some communities, including the Canary Islands, but lacks a State Plan, recalls the Telephone of La Esperanza.