SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Sep 10 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The dean of the Official College of Psychology of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Carmen Linares, has delivered this Friday to the Vice President of Parliament, Rosa Dávila, a manifesto on the occasion of the ‘World Day for the Prevention of Suicide’ in which they request the creation of a study commission and a suicide prevention plan.
“We have to make the people who suffer come to us, psychologists, psychologists have us as a luxury item,” he insisted on the lack of psychologists in public health and the need to normalize their presence in Primary Care , “so that it does not continue to be a taboo nor can the ‘pill’ be the only solution, which also chronifies the problem, instead of professional care and monitoring of the person”.
Along these lines, Felipe Lagarejo, the coordinator of the Tenerife COP Suicide Working Group, has demanded the need to create a comprehensive prevention plan and exposed with a “recent professional example” that could prevent the suicide of a woman.
However, he has commented that “there is no prevention plan, an intervention protocol or psychologists in 1-1-2 or in health centers to monitor the suicidal person” and stressed that the objective is that the victims of suicide “do not be less victims than others.”
For her part, Rosa Dávila thanked the work carried out by the College on this “serious problem” for the active contribution, with solutions, and highlighted that with the pandemic mental health has come to the fore, also in Parliament of the Canary Islands.
Both parties have stressed the importance of helping the media to make suicide visible and its prevention, although with adequate treatment, as must be done in cases of gender violence.
In fact, Rosa Dávila recalled what has been done in this other area, and the available resources, such as the victim service telephone line or emergency devices, which is also requested among the measures for suicide care.
The manifesto will also be sent from the Parliament to the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, to the parliamentary groups and to the Diputación del Común.
FOURTH COMMUNITY WITH THE MOST SUICIDES
Suicide in the Canary Islands is the leading cause of death in young people between the ages of 14 and 29, and in general terms, it is estimated that the death toll is three times that of traffic accidents and is 15 times higher than all violent deaths combined.
According to the latest available data, in the Canary Islands a total of 197 people died in 2019 from this cause.
The rate in the archipelago is 9.15 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, higher than the Spanish average of 7.81, which places the islands among the four autonomous communities with the highest suicide rates.
