Five million euro is to be spent regionally in 2013 to address the issue of suicide prevention. The money will go towards the funding of resource officers for suicide prevention, self-harm liaison nurses in hospital emergency departments and local suicide prevention initiatives.
That’s according to Kathleen Lynch, Minister for Disability, Equality, Mental Health and Older People.
Minister Lynch outlined a range of initiatives the Government has taken and will be taking this year to help prevent suicide, a continuously growing problem in Irish society, to the HSE West regional forum by way of letter. This was in response to a request put forward by Mayo Fine Gael Councillor Seamus Weir at the October meeting of the HSE West Regional Forum. Cllr Weir told the Mayo Advertiser that he feels strongly about mental health and will continue to highlight the issues at the regional forum level. He said it was positive to see “people being put in the right places to deal with crisis situations, including A&E and primary care centres”.
This year the Government aims to further the development of the existing national mental health awareness campaigns to promote help seeking. There will be increased training for GPs and practice staff. Efforts will be made to build the capacity of communities to respond to suicide. There will be implementation of the clinical care programme for self-harm including the funding of nursing posts within hospital emergency departments, training of acute hospital staff on suicide and self-harm intervention and the development of the suicide crisis assessment nurse model which allows for crisis interventions at primary care. There will also be investment in voluntary agencies providing frontline services.
