Suicide Prevention: A message from Lifeline (April 2010)

You might be surprised to know that more than 2,000 Australians kill themselves each year.
That's six today and six again tomorrow.

And for each person who suicides, 30 people a day attempt suicide. That's roughly 180 people attempting suicide each day in Australia.

Susan Beaton, Lifeline's national advisor on suicide prevention talks about the impact of suicide on Australian society. We can all do someing to improve suicide prevention and raise awarness about this issue.

Find out what you can do at Lifeline's website.

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[rskissack]

While I'm not Australian, I very much appreciate your compassionate efforts. Respectfully, however, please consider this: those over 44 who have struggled with depression, (e.g., me), may listen to this and feel even worse! Three times you mention "under 44" in your 2 min 26 sec video - which leaves the impression, albeit unintended, that older people don't really matter to your organization. That was my immediate gut (vs. head) reaction, even if unfair. Thoughts?

[LifelineAustralia]

@rskissack Thanks for your comment, we appreciate your feedback. We prepared this video as part of a focused Suicide Prevention Awareness campaign in response to revised statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics - which show suicide is the number one cause of death for Australians under the age of 44. This is quite a shocking statistic and it’s important that people hear about it. Lifeline cares about suicide among people of all ages and genders and we answer 1,250 phone calls a day.

[lisaacson1]

I am also not an Australian. I am a Psychiatric Nursing Masters student at Boston College in Massachusetts. As you can imagine, statistics are similar in the US. To respond to rskissack, I can see why it is difficult to hear "under 44" repeatedly, but the power of this statistic is that suicide is not taken as seriously as a COD for the entire population. It should be heard, though, that suicide rate is highest in those over the age of 85 and prevention programs should exist for all ages.