Nunavik residents seek help in dealing with suicide crisis
Communities have little access to mental health services and care
The pain spread like contagion.
A father found his son’s lifeless body in their home and called for help. Paramedics rushed to the scene, trying frantically to revive the young man, but it was too late.
Whatever unyielding measure of pain led the young man to take his own life was already beginning to ripple through Quaqtaq. Sevim Ilgun says that, like so many families in the Inuit village, hers has been devastated by the suicide.
Ilgun’s sister, her brother and cousin were the paramedics on duty that Oct. 14 night.
“My sister didn’t sleep for a few days,” said Ilgun, a youth leader in Quaqtaq. “She told me the dead person was frozen in her arms. My brother and my cousin took turns doing CPR, they could still taste the dead person.”
This year, 15 people have taken their lives in the Nunavik region — a network of 14 villages spread across Quebec’s frozen northern coast.
Ilgun says the suicides speak to the central contradiction of living in the North: that it can feel unimaginably big and yet so small at the same time.
Too often, accessing proper mental health services means taking a costly plane ride to Kuujjuaq, the region’s remote administrative hub, or coming south to Montreal. Getting local services at the edge of the continent is nearly impossible.
On the flip side, because these communities are so small — where a village is often little more than a collection of families, cousins and distant relatives — the pain of each loss cuts far deeper than it would in the south.
Two years ago, when Nunavik was facing a similar suicide crisis, leaders called on Quebec to declare a state of emergency. Some extra mental health workers were deployed but the provincial government didn’t declare a state of emergency.
Now history appears to be repeating itself. Most of these recent deaths have come in the past month, in the village of Puvirnituq.
Once again, leaders are calling on the federal and provincial governments to take action.
“We feel the situation requires urgent collective action at the regional level,” said Robert Watt, president of the Kativik council of school commissioners, in a letter published this week.
“As front line workers in education, our staff witness daily a broad spectrum of issues related to the well-being of children ... One of the victims was as young as 11 years old.”
The school board held emergency meetings in Kuujjuaq on Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing together dozens of representatives from the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and the school system in hopes of addressing the crisis.
Midway through the first day, the meetings were put on hold so people could attend the funerals of two suicide victims in town.
Many of the children in Nunavik are the descendants of residential school survivors. They ’re still suffering the intergenerational consequences of abuse doled out to Inuit children at the church-run schools.
Others live in such overcrowded housing conditions, that they’re forced to sleep in shifts before going to school in the morning — according to a recently published report by Quebec’s ombudsman.
Meanwhile, population in the region of 12,000 is growing and funding for additional resources is struggling to keep pace. Few have direct access to a doctor and sit on waiting lists to access basic mental health care.
The newly elected Coalition Avenir Québec government sent representatives to the meetings and a government source says they’re assessing what can be done to immediately make an impact.
For its part, the federal government has recently authorized $500,000 on crisis intervention measures.
“This is a tragic situation that no community should live through,” said Sylvie D’Amours, Quebec’s Indigenous Affairs minister. “I offer my most sincere condolences to the families and to the communities affected by this tragedy.”
The minister said her government is working with local government to find “respectful solutions” to the problem.
One of the most pressing needs, according to Watt, is the “inadequate” support for front-line workers who’ve had to witness so many young people dying.
“The front-line workers get debriefing but that’s all they get,” said Ilgun. “They’re just living with it now and just hope to move on ... It’s madness. Parents are going crazy blaming everyone, schools are closed because of it.
“The only help we have is the community, but we are not mental health professionals trained to help trauma.”
The regional health board is partnering with the federal Employee Assistance Program to offer group and individual therapy to frontline workers. Over the past few years, the regional government has also trained about 100 interveners in the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training Program.
Despite the unfolding crisis, Ilgun and her sister can find solace in each other’s company.
The pair threw an early Halloween party last week, inviting their friends to dress up as goblins, witches, animals and zombies for the occasion.
They came to Montreal a few days later to attend a concert by Charles “Saali” Keelan — an Inuk folksinger. During the performance, Ilgun was called onstage to sing alongside Keelan.
“Music is my therapy,” said Ilgun. “I think we are resilient and we are strong and we can find help in each other. For some people, it’s just about going on the land, hunting, fishing, being out on the territory.
“But there is only so much we can do for ourselves. We need resources and we need them now.”