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Suicide Epidemic Fuelled by Drink

By Gemma Burns, North Belfast News 27th June 09

The suicide and self-harming epidemic in North Belfast is being fuelled by alcohol and drug abuse, according to a top psychiatrist in the Mater hospital.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Philip McGarry was speaking after it was revealed this week that the Mater Hospital tops the table in the North for admissions for attempted suicide and self-harm.

The figures were revealed by the health minister Michael McGimpsey who added that incidents of attempted suicide and self-harm are increasing. There were 5,082 cases of self-harm or suicide attempts requiring hospital admission across the North for the year 2007/08. This compares to 4,018 the previous year.

Dr McGarry, who is also chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said that although the problem is multifaceted and cannot be blamed on one specific problem, binge drinking and drug use is pushing their admission rates higher than any other hospital.

Alcohol is a factor in a significant proportion of the cases we are admitting. This doesn’t even apply solely to mental health issues but indeed many of the cases we see in A&E he said.

In My years as a consultant psychiatrist I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of patients who have attempted suicide or self-harmed and alcohol is a factor in the majority of cases. Binge drinking makes us do things we might not do sober.

It is a big issue for the population in this area. Obviously it would be totally simplistic to blame the figures solely on alcohol and drugs, they can just be the push that makes someone behave that way.

He also added that their admissions unit sees high numbers of young men under the age of 25 who are experiencing serious mental health problems. Suicide is more common in young men under the age of 25, one because they use more lethal method in their attempt and also because girls feel like they have more people to talk to he said.

Then you look at relationship issues, many of these young people have had a problem in their relationship and don’t know what to do.  Social factors such as deprivation and employment all add to the problem.

The royal College of Psychiatrists has told the Stormont health committee that alcohol is a major public health issues and needs to be dealt with.

Dr McGarry said that more work is needed to bring down the figures and ensure people who do feel like they want to take their own life or are self-harming receive the best possible care.

We need better funding for the problem and better services in hospitals so when someone comes in there are options and people we can refer them on to. We need more funding for what is called psychotherapeutic services, were for example you could prescribe someone medication but also send them to therapy.

Any GP I know in Belfast would be delighted to have more access to psychotherapy as a way of helping their patients. If we had more funding and more stringent laws on alcohol we could go some way to alleviating the problem.

There is work being done on this now and I am glad to see it.

Philip McTaggart founder of suicide prevention charity PIPS, agreed with the mental health expert that alcohol and drugs play a major role but are not the only factors leading to suicide and self-harm.

Drink and drugs have a major part to play when someone attempts suicide or self-harms, Alcohol makes you more impulsive and anyone with a problem when they are out drinking it just makes it worse.

Drink increases a problem five fold and drugs increase a problem ten fold. But it can’t be all down to drink and drugs, it is very multi faceted and there are lots of pressures on our young people these days, we need to look at jobs, poverty, relationships, education and life skills.