Editorial:-
This section returns to this worry too
often, and that should be reinforcement enough of the magnitude of the problem.
It is clear that not enough is being done at any level to address the
disconcerting prevalence of suicides in Sikkim. This newspaper, we repeat, had
started reporting on suicide cases in the belief that as readers started
noticing the frequency with which people were ending their lives in Sikkim,
some initiative will shake out of that collective concern. While some noises
were made initially, in what appears many years back, and even some
sensitisation programmes attempted, nothing meaningful has unfortunately
materialised to address the issue. It appears that news-report of yet another
suicide has even stopped shocking people anymore. But it should shock. Imagine
the trauma a brother will have to carry throughout his life after having found
his 15 year old sister dead to suicide, having hung herself with a khada at
home. This happened recently in Gangtok, and is unfortunately not a rare
occurrence. Suicides have become too commonplace in Sikkim. Some months back, a
10 year old in rural East Sikkim returned home from tuition classes to discover
his mother’s dead body hanging from the ceiling fan. Those who have not had to
deal with the confusion and trauma of having a near one commit suicide cannot
even begin to fathom the shock and horror of such an experience, but all can
surely empathise with the suffering of the people in question – both, the
suicide victims as well as the families that they leace behind. Time will
probably heal the 10-year-old child or alleviate the brother’s sorrow, but in their
loss, Sikkim should sit down and work out how it plans to deal with the
situation.
Too many people, all over Sikkim and across
all age-groups are ending their own lives. Suicide is no longer a rarity or an aberration
and returns too often to haunt Sikkim and claim fathers, mothers, grandparents,
and also too often, even children. It is not enough to deduce that people end
their lives because of problems they cannot deal with any more or due to
poverty. Everyone has problems and many are poor, not all of them commit
suicide. It is also obvious that the psychiatric help which keeps things in balance
in one’s mind is not adequately available in Sikkim. Contemplating suicide is
one thing, to actually commit it quite another. Obviously, not everyone attempt
it, but those whose mental make-up has been debilitated by an unnoticed and
untreated ailment are more wont to do so. Depression is rampant in Sikkim and
although more people are coming forward nowadays than earlier to seek medical
help, there are too many who still obviously don’t. Fact also remains that of
everyone who requires it, started seeking medical help, there simply won’t be
enough psychiatrists around to attend to anyone. And that is where paramedics,
NGOs and social organisations will have to come in. With the comforting cushion
of a large family gone, the pressures of modern lifestyles get the better of
many and some snap under it. It is an accepted fact that a majority of the
suicides can be prevented if the right psychiatric help and counsel were made
available at the right time. Sikkim needs to figure out how it will do so. And it
will have to figure this out fast, before another minor stumbles on to a
suicide by a family member or another parent learns of a suicide of a child...
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