Suicide in Australia is still a very taboo topic, and in the past couple of years, statistics for suicide deaths are at a steady rate.
In the year 2010, there were nearly double the amount of suicide deaths in Australia, compared to road traffic accidents.
Males made up three quarters (77%) of all suicides with 1816 reported deaths, whilst there were 545 reported female deaths.
Of all the age groups, males ages 34-45 years was far higher than any other age group, as shown in the graph below.
The number of deaths in Australia have plateaued out, and have not had a significant decrease in the past 10 years.
Lisa Castle, a member of the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Network (SPAN) here in Geelong, says that more needs to be done for suicide prevention.
SPAN holds annual walks for suicide awareness, signifying that suicide is a problem that isn’t going away .
Lisa, who lost her son Shaun in 2009, hopes that these annual walks on Australia Day continue to grow.
Lisa Castle is a member of the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Network in Geelong.
“We’ve got it branching off now, Ballarat is trying to get one up and running and Melbourne is too”, said Lisa. “Our goal eventually is to be national, so that we’re represented in every state, which would be fantastic.”
With World Suicide Prevention Day and R U Okay Day being held this week, there has been more people talking about the issue of suicide, especially through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Both events aim for creating conversation around the prevention of suicide and to break down this issue for more open conversations.
Lifeline was founded in 1963, and last year answered over 500 million calls. However, nearly 4 out of 10 calls were abandoned due to long waiting times.
Government funding for Lifeline has not increased in 5 years, and with statistics out there to prove that suicide is a real problem, it is people like Lisa who have experienced this first hand, that are the ones getting angry.
Check out the ABC 7.30 report in the video below:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3587181.htm
You can find out more about suicide prevention here:
Lifeline – 13 11 14 – Website
SANE Australia – 1800 18 SANE – Website
R U Okay – Twitter – Facebook – YouTube
Victorian Suicide Line – 1300 651 251
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