EU moves to tackle suicide and mental illness

SOME 58,000 EU citizens commit suicide every year but little is being done to tackle mental illness.

That is according to EU Parliament members. Now the EU is developing a policy on how to tackle mental illness which they hope will lead to a decrease in suicides and the number of people suffering depression.

Described as Europe’s unseen killer, 28% of people suffer some kind of mental illness each year; 58,000 commit suicide and over half a million attempt to take their own lives.

Ireland is unique in the huge growth of suicide among young men aged between 15 and 24 years. The rate has increased by 70% in the past 15 years while the EU average is falling.

Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle said it is essential to listen to those affected by mental illness,.

“One in four Europeans is likely to experience mental health problems at some point in their lives. While early intervention is always important, it is crucial that we listen to what those affected by mental illness want and need, and that we feed that information into the development of mental health strategies at national and EU level,” she said.

Ms Doyle was chairing a session at a conference in the European Parliament on the Commission’s proposals for an EU Mental Health strategy.

A recent survey of people with mental illness showed how their conditions were not helped by society’s attitudes to them, discrimination, a reluctance to employ them and drugs with heavy side-effects.

Ms Doyle said: “We need well-funded, well-managed public information campaigns to tackle discrimination. 98% of respondents said mental health is given insufficient priority by their governments.”

Mental illness is now Europe’s fastest growing health problem and governments last year asked the Commission to produce a plan for dealing with the problem on a pan-European level.

Health Commissioner Marcos Kyprianou pointed out that by 2020 depression is expected to be the second most common cause of disability in the developed world.

Up to 90% of suicide cases have a history of mental ill heath. Depression is also a factor in physical illness including heart diseases.

The economic cost is significant with anti-depressants costing the state about €50m a year and overall resulting in a loss of 3% to 4% of GDP through lost productivity.

Later this year the Commission will launch its action plan on how the EU and its member states should tackle mental illness.