Mental health improvement must be focus

IT was terrifying to read about how one-in-nine young adults in Scotland has attempted suicide.

As the parent of young children, it would destroy me if, by the age of 34, my kids felt the only option was to take their lives.

In some ways, though, I am not surprised at the statistics.

I know people who have had struggles with their mental health for a variety of reasons – and even though they have reached out for assistance to medical professionals, they don’t feel as though they’ve received the help they wanted or needed.

Some have waited for referrals to services designed to help them, and are still waiting.

Thankfully, their cases have never been so drastic that they have attempted suicide, like some of the stories we’ve heard in Dundee recently, but they could easily have reached that stage had they not sought other forms of support.

The lack of help for those who struggle with their mental health was only highlighted further by the tragic death of Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison (pictured).

Despite his high profile, the fact he had become a successful and hugely respected musician, and the fact he’d publicly spoken and sung about his own mental health battles, he clearly still didn’t feel like he had enough support around him to go on.

I don’t doubt that mental health is an extremely challenging thing for the health service to deal with.

It’s not an illness that can be tackled with antibiotics and an operation won’t cure it – it’s much more complex than that.

But given the prevalence of mental illness in this country, these latest statistics, and Mr Hutchison’s story, improving the nation’s mental health must now become a priority for those running our public authorities.

Mi,QSul.