Incidence of suicide by psychiatric patients ‘must be reduced’

URGENT action is needed to reduce the high number of psychiatric patients committing suicide, Fine Gael’s Dan Neville said yesterday.

The party’s spokesperson on health with special responsibility for mental health said 15 people died by suicide, or suspected suicide, in psychiatric hospitals in 2003.

Seven of those who took their own lives were on leave, four of these without permission. One was on leave to visit an external hospital, unaccompanied.