At least 59 suicide attempts reported to Nunavut RCMP this year

The Nunavut RCMP have likely handled at least 59 suicide attempts this year so far, Insp. Don Halina said Sept. 21 at a special coroner’s inquest into suicide this week. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut RCMP members field more than three calls a day, on average, from distraught Nunavummiut showing signs of poor mental health, Insp. Don Halina told a coroner’s inquest into the territory’s high suicide numbers Sept. 22.

And Nunavut RCMP track statistics on those attempted suicides that police are alerted to, Halina told a six-member jury.

“Don’t quote me on this, but I think we’re at 59 attempted suicides for this calendar year [in Nunavut],” Halina said at the inquest, being held at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

Researchers testifying earlier in the two-week inquest, which wraps up Sept. 24, said that tracking attempted suicides in the territory would provide important insight into tackling Nunavut’s suicide problem.

“But we don’t see all suicide attempts. We’re just one frontline [service] provider,” Halina said, testifying on the seventh day of the inquest.

Nunavut’s chief coroner called the inquest in January 2014 after revealing that 45 Nunavummiut died by suicide in 2013 — the highest number in the territory’s 15-year history.

Over the first week of the inquest, the jury heard that Nunavut’s suicide rate is nearly 10 times the national average, especially affecting men between 14 and 25 years old.

The jury also heard members of the working group responsible for coming up with a strategy and action plan for suicide prevention blame one member of that working group in particular — the Government of Nunavut — for failing to provide adequate leadership and resources to ensure the plan’s success.

But when the assistant deputy minister of the GN’s health department testified Sept. 18, she said the Nunavut government cannot commit to any of the 42 recommendations made by an external review of the suicide prevention action plan adopted by the government in 2011.

For the RCMP, another member of that working group, Halina said suicide prevention is one of the police force’s “major priorities” in Nunavut.

Halina said police engage with communities to encourage active, healthy lifestyles, and work with local mental health professionals to provide support for those deemed to be at risk of suicide.

And, as of about six months ago, new members of the Nunavut RCMP now review a cultural awareness information sheet to better understand Inuit culture and traditional knowledge.

That cultural awareness initiative, Halina explained, came out of a coroner’s inquest held in November 2014 in Igloolik into the death of a local man in a cell at the Igloolik RCMP detachment.

The jury of that inquest recommended that all RCMP members in Nunavut receive training in the principles of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.

The two officers on duty the night the Igloolik man died received no Nunavut or Inuit-specific training before working in the north Baffin community.

Halina referred to the death of the Igloolik man as a death by suicide.

But the jury at the 2014 inquest in Igloolik did not classify the death as a suicide, instead recommending that the RCMP re-open the investigation into the death instead.

Members of the Embrace Life Council were scheduled to testify at the suicide inquest in the afternoon of Sept. 22.

Representatives from the regional Inuit organizations, as well as members of the public, are scheduled to testify before the jury retires to deliberate Sept. 23.

The jury is then expected to come up with recommendations on how Nunavut can move forward in reducing its high rate of suicide.