Nunavut needs better information-gathering on suicidal behaviour: MLA

Quttiktuq MLA Ron Elliot urges the GN’s health officials to collect, analyse and release data on suicide attempts and their circumstances March 5 in the Nunavut legislature. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Quttiktuq MLA Ron Elliott says the Government of Nunavut needs to revisit one of the items in its suicide prevention action plan.

Section 5.4 of the GN’s plan, released last September, commits to collecting and releasing data on suicide attempts across the territory, as part of efforts to research and better understand suicidal behaviour.

And Nunavut’s health and social services minister Keith Peterson told the Nunavut legislature Feb. 29 that the Nunavut RCMP has begun collecting that data.

But Elliott says that the RCMP must work alongside health department officials in order to fully access those statistics.

“While the RCMP may be doing valuable work on this subject, Health and Social Services should be playing a leading role on this file,” Elliott told the assembly March 5. “The RCMP only knows about some attempts — many people only reveal their attempts to a nurse.”

Elliott said there have been four medevacs responding to suicide attempts from his home community of Arctic Bay in recent weeks, while the RCMP only dealt with two of the incidents.

The action plan does list the Department of Health and Social Services as a partner in collecting data on suicide attempts.

And the RCMP’s role, it says, is “to implement scoring systems in responses RCMP members make to attempted suicides.”

But along with tracking attempts, Elliott said it’s important to also track what was happening before and after the suicide attempt.

“It’s essential that we understand all the factors that lead to a suicide attempt,” Elliott said. “How many were sexually abused? How many were under the influence of drugs or alcohol?”

“We also need to know all the services that are accessed by the individual after their attempt,” he added. “And only Health and Social Services can thoroughly review those files and perhaps conduct interviews with the individual.”

To provide examples, Elliott tabled reports prepared in three different jurisdictions that collected data on suicide attempts.

In Ontario’s Niagara district, officials gathered data on suicide attempts in 2003 by sex, age and municipality, along with hospitalization rates.

The research showed that the region’s inpatient admissions due to suicide attempts were higher than national and provincial rates.

Another report, prepared in Nova Scotia in 2004, gathered data that showed 55 per cent of people who died by suicide had contacted their health providers about a mental disorder within a year of their death; 27 per cent had contact with a health provider about a mental disorder within a month of their death.

Elliot urged health officials to collect, analyse and release data on suicide attempts and their circumstances, as part of its action plan.

“We need data of that quality to plan more effective interventions,” he said.