Suicide crisis needs answers

draft report would have applauded.

The 38-page Ministry of Health document opens with these lines: ‘‘We want a New Zealand in which everyone is able to have a healthy future and see their life as worth living. Reducing suicidal behaviour will help us become this kind of country’’. It goes on to describe the shockingly high levels of suicidal thought and action in New Zealand. While 500 New Zealanders commit suicide every year, another 150,000 think about it, 50,000 plan it and 20,000 attempt it.

Most of the report talks about the various ways in which greater support could be offered to individuals and communities. The best of these might be a suggestion that we could try to ‘‘increase mental health literacy and suicide prevention literacy’’. In plain speech, this means we should be more open and informed about suicide and mental health issues in general.

Plain speech is of course what King was asking for. He resigned from the advisory group that produced a report he called ‘‘wishy washy’’ and ‘‘deeply flawed’’. He said that he wanted to set a specific target of reducing suicide by 20 per cent over 10 years.

The wish to set a 20 per cent target is shared by the Mental Health Foundation. Its chief executive, Shaun Robinson, agreed with King and told media that without a target, the draft report is a ‘‘meaningless statement’’.

Other countries have set targets. In its 2014 report Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative, the World Health Organisation noted that England’s Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation strategy in 1999 aimed to reduce the suicide rate by 20 per cent by 2010. The target was reached two years early. The World Health Organisation’s own Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020 aims to reduce the rate by 10 per cent by 2020.

In this context, it is understandable that King and Robinson are frustrated. But the Ministry of Health is taking submissions from the public on suicide prevention until June 12. If enough groups and individuals back the calls for a target or other more specific aims, the ministry may choose to include them in the completed strategy that follows the draft.

King’s very public departure from the advisory group is a bad look for a government that has been accused of under-funding mental health services and whose Health Minister, Jonathan Coleman, attacked a group who campaign for greater resources.