Health Board’s Reply to Jan O’Sullivan

RSAG Response

Jan O’Sullivan TD put a series of questions to The Mid-Western Health Board on behalf of the Rosbrien suicide Awareness Group (RSAG).

The following is there response and our comments.

Health Board
An Inter Agency Steering Group was set up in 1998 in response to the NTF recommendations and formulated an action plan.

We are not aware of this group, even though we have had a number of meetings with Health Board representatives.
We would like to have a copy of this action plan 

Health Board's response to Jan’s five questions.

   1.     Training workshops for post primary schools crisis teams will start in Jan 2002.
           A Youth Wise Directory will be made available to all households in spring of 2002.
           They will develop support services, which will be accessible by young men, a Research
           student will commence on this project in Feb 2002.

All in the future, nothing yet in place. 
We would like to have access to this research student.

2. All Para suicide patients who attend A & E services in Limerick are invited to participate in a six-week problem-solving program.

This is new to us. We know of no one who has been offered this program.
Where is it held and who gives it. 

3. Multi-disciplinary teams are trained on risk assessment and a Regional Multi-agency/Multi-disciplinary approach for assessment and management of para-suicide parents is proposed during 2002.

Again in the future, not in place yet.
We were told that this would be put in place in 2001, it is vital that the services as outlined in the National Task Force are put in place without delay as every week we hear of another Limerick person lost through suicide.

4. Families who are bereaved by suicide are provided with      

We welcome this development but there are still problems with it.
It does not include one to one counseling for families. It also fails to deal with counseling/support for the friends of young suicide victims. If these young people are not counseled it can lead to further deaths by suicide.
The distribution of  “You are not alone” and information on SOS Officers is left with the Gardai. We feel that this can be difficult for a Garda and may be too direct as the initial contact by the Gardai is for legal purposes.
We would suggest that the churches should be involved in passing this book on to bereaved families, as in most cases the Clergy are also with the families at an early stage.

5. The Health Lines Directory was widely distributed to primary care agencies both statuary and voluntary. It was also distributed at Suicide Awareness Seminars and training sessions It is available to the public on request.

Our information is that GP’s did not get copies of Directory and we would recommend that the public is made aware of its existence because if they are not aware of its existence they cannot request it. 

Our over all comment is that there always seems to be a lot in the pipeline with the Health board but little in place. Four years have now passed since the Task Force Report was published and in the mean time over 1500 people have died by suicide in this country. We do not want to hear of more review groups and reports we want services as outlined in the Task Force put in place with out delay.