Teenage suicides plunge Cape Dorset into crisis mode

SARA MINOGUE

A 13-year-old girl killed herself in May. Next came a 15-year-old girl at the end of July. Then an 18-year-old girl in August, and in the same month, another teenage girl, who traveled from Cape Dorset to Northern Quebec before taking her own life.

Cape Dorset has lost four young women to suicide in four months, and it continues.

“Certainly we’re dealing with countless attempts right now,” said RCMP Cst. Jonathan Saxby last Friday. “On one given day in particular, about three days ago, the mental health nurse was working on her fifth case that day where somebody had threatened suicide and we had to bring them down to speak with her.”

In the week before World Suicide Prevention day on Sept. 10, it’s a grim picture.

In the past, Cape Dorset had a swift response team for crises like these. Elders, social service workers, RCMP, health centre staff, school staff and volunteers had formed three committees: suicide prevention, intervention and post-vention. These not only tried to prevent deaths, but to help friends and family – and potential victims – who survive.

In May of this year, Cape Dorset had not suffered a suicide in at least two years, and the groups were inactive. Now, Saxby said, community members are reviving the groups that were in place.

“All the agencies here in Cape Dorset are mobilized and we’re trying to come up with solutions on how to get this issue slowed down a little bit,” he said.

That all victims are female is a troubling aspect of the suicides, and one that reminds those trying to prevent more deaths just how little is known about the problem.

In previous years, coroner’s statistics show that eighty or ninety per cent of suicides were young males, aged 14 – 24.

“It’s really strange,” says Lori Idlout, executive director of Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Katujjiqatigiit, Nunavut’s Embrace Life Council, who was contacted by the community’s recreation director. “Usually it’s young boys. We’ve been quite shocked.”

Idlout said she’s hoping to fly two people to the community in early October to lead some community discussions on the problem.

“We’re not going to go there to tell them what the answers are,” Idlout said. “This is really up to the community. We want to make sure they acknowledge it. We don’t want to go in there and say we’ve got all the answers, because we don’t.”

The department of health and social services is taking a similar approach. Last week, the department sent Heather Hackney, a nursing director for that community, to report on the situation.

“We felt it was important to have a senior person be there to be able to assess the situation to see if there was anything else we can do,” said Virginia Turner, the department’s regional director for the Baffin.

“She reports that it is a very strong community, people are doing some really good things, and they’re not saying they need anything more at the moment… I think we have a sense that the last thing people need is to have some outside people come in at this time.”

Cape Dorset is fortunate in having a designated mental health nurse posted in their community. There are just five registered psychiatric nursing positions in the Baffin region, four of which are currently filled.

Maureen Simpson was posted in Cape Dorset at the beginning of this year, where she also serves clients in Kimmirut. Her job was created two years ago as part of the health and social services department’s strategy to improve health and wellness at the community level.

Cape Dorset, population 1,300, has already suffered its fair share of tragedy this year. In February, a man died after a violent fight, and a woman was charged with his homicide. At the end of April, two men, aged 25 and 35, disappeared after a search and rescue mission went awry. Their snowmobile tracks led to open water.

Overall in Nunavut, there have been 15 deaths by suicide this year, slightly lower than previous years.

“Fifteen is still an incredibly high number,” says Tim Neily, Nunavut’s chief coroner.