Nunavut coroner: lower rate of suicide deaths this year

Padma Suramala, Nunavut’s chief coroner, at a press conference held Oct. 2 at her Iqaluit office. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut has recorded 19 suicides so far in 2014, the territory’s chief coroner, Padma Suramala, said Oct. 2 at a press conference held in her Iqaluit office.

This likely means the number of suicides for 2014 may turn out to be significantly lower than the record total for 2013, which was 45.

“The office of the chief coroner conveys our deepest sympathy to everyone affected by suicides in the North,” Suramala said.

She said she called the press conference to address the numerous questions her office has received after an 11-year-old boy in Cape Dorset died by suicide at the end of September, just shy of his twelfth birthday.

The boy’s death has left many Nunavummiut in shock. Last year, an 11-year old boy in Repulse Bay became the youngest suicide victim in the territory’s history.

The communities that suffered the most suicide deaths in 2014 in Nunavut are Iqaluit (4), Pond Inlet (4) and Rankin Inlet (3), the chief coroner said.

Suramala announced this past January that her office would hold a discretionary inquest into suicides this fall to highlight risk factors and facilitate recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

But she said Oct. 2 that the inquest has been pushed back a few months, with results from the inquest expected by March 2015.

Suramala said she delayed the inquest because of time constraints.

The coroner’s office is currently preparing for a mandatory inquest into the death of an Igloolik man who died while in police custody, scheduled for November.

And the effort to collect the huge amount of sensitive material for the discretionary inquest into suicide is very time-consuming, Suramala added.

Suramala also announced that the number of suicide cases to be examined during the inquest has been increased from three to five.

This increase, she said, reflects the need to cover all risk factors associated with suicide.

The cases investigated for the inquest are not chosen at random, she said, but are chosen to reflect the different known risk factors of suicide.

The coroner’s office main responsibility is to investigate all deaths in the territory.

After each investigation, the coroner classifies the death as natural, suicide, homicide, accident or undetermined.

When a death is classified as a suicide, the coroner determines the risk factors of suicide that existed before the death.

“It is a sensitive topic, however we all need to talk and explore better options to deal with the current situation,” Suramala said.