Suicide hotspot warning

‘People must pay more attention to mental health’

TASMANIANS need to be more proactive when facing the early warning signs of mental illness, says a St Helens doctor whose locality is considered a national suicide “hotspot”.

Dr Molly Shorthouse, a GP at the St Helens’ Ochre Health Medical Centre, said the town was above the national suicide rate and had battled with suicide clusters over the past two years.

As a result, this month LifeSpan revealed its federally funded suicide prevention model would be trialled in the state around the Break O’Day area as well as in Launceston, Burnie, Devonport and the Central Coast.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data last year found Tasmania had the second highest suicide rate in the country last year with 17 deaths per 100,000 people, behind only the Northern Territory (19.3).

Primary Health Tasmania is co-ordinating implementation of the state trial, working closely with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Tasmanian Health Service, the Black Dog Institute, other suicide prevention organisations and local communities.

Men aged 40-64 and men and women over the age of 65 in five communities will be the focus of the Tasmanian component of an Australian Government-funded trial with data gathering to begin by the end of this year.

Dr Shorthouse, who is also the Rural Doctor’s Association of Tasmania president, said she wanted to raise awareness of early warning signs.

“Overall, rural and remote areas suffer as they don’t have the services,” she said.

Dr Shorthouse said the eight signs of mental health issues were: memory loss or a short attention span, weight gain or loss, irritability, social withdrawal, anhedonia (melancholy), workplace conflict, loss of productivity and insomnia. She said warning signs could often be mistaken for something else. “We know that when a person’s mental health is strong, their chronic and physical illnesses also improve and many people with chronic disease do not have their mental health checked.”