World Suicide Prevention Day

Today is #worldsuicidepreventionday And, whilst it’s a very difficult topic but it is one that’s important and personal to me.

World Suicide Prevention Day

Suicide claims thousands of lives every year. Every single day people are out there deciding that the world would be better off without them. Sometime people turn to suicide impulsively but, for most, they will have had these thoughts and plans for some time. Many of them would have considered talking to someone or getting help. It’s so important that we don’t avoid the topic. We need to ask and be prepared to listen. We need to check in on people. We need to accept that it can be a matter of life and death. But now, more than ever, we need to support the system that can get people the help they need. If people reach out for help they need to not wait for appointments, for therapy, for an emergency psychiatric bed.

The waiting can be the killer. We’d consider it appalling if people had to pay for private medical care in order to start cancer treatment; yet securing therapy or in-patient care for mental health problems often requires people to pay huge sums of money. And money is often something that people living with mental health problems often do not have. So, on this World Suicide Prevention Day let’s support the people who are struggling but also pledge to support proper funding for mental health within our wonderful NHS - to make sure they can be there to provide critical and life saving support to the people we might be about to lose.