Doctors, NGOs team up to check campus suicide - TNN

Doctors, NGOs team up to check campus suicide

TNN | Feb 28, 2016, 12.29 PM IST

Chennai: Doctors' bodies such as Indian Psychiatric Society and NGOs like Sneha will work with the support of WHO to frame guidelines and train students, parents and teachers to prevent suicides on campuses.

The 3-day conference organised by NGO Sneha in Chennai noted that the death of Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad University and 3 medical students in a Tamil Nadu college could have been prevented if these campuses had a 'protective net' of peers, seniors, teachers and health systems. India has the dubious distinction of being the world's suicide capital.

"Students choosing death above a prospective life shows a failure in the system. We think it's our duty (to correct this trend)," said Indian Psychiatric Society president Dr G Prasad Rao. The society is working with schools while lobbying with the Union human resource development ministry and University Grants Commission to make suicide prevention cells mandatory on college campuses. "We will hopefully get it done by the next academic year. Several doctors have volunteered to work with educational institutions," he said.

Doctors sought to dispel the belief that people who took their own lives would have ultimately done it even if stopped the first time. Geneva-based Dr Shekar Saxena, director, department of mental health and substance abuse, WHO, said on many occasions suicide can be an impulsive act, especially among the young, making it difficult to predict. "Across the globe experts are calling for reconsideration of suicide-prevention strategies. Growing evidence have shown suicide ideas don't last long. Most people who are prevented from an attempt change their mind in 24 hrs," he said.

This can happen by keeping students busy in the real-world through social network or denying access to things that can lead to suicide. For instance, access to alcohol and drugs to a depressed student can prove lethal. At least 35% of all those who committed suicide in India did it under the influence of alcohol, said Sneha founder Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar.

Support, they said, is crucial. "Our family ties are becoming weak, and the new ties which should have been strengthened haven't become strong. Support doesn't exist on many campuses," said London-based Dr Vikram Patel from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In many countries including the UK, suicide rates are low because people on campus have taken the responsibility to work on them, he said.

Two years ago, Dr Vijayakumar and a former IIT director toured the IITs to find out reasons for campus suicides. "We made recommendations such as developing 'student mentors' who would listen to juniors, encourage and offer emotional support. 

This is working well in IIT-Kanpur. We wanted it implemented on all IIT campuses. The file is probably gathering dust in the ministry," she said.

Panel suggestions Still in Cold storage - The Indian Express

Panel suggestions Still in Cold storage

By Ram M Sundaram

Published: 23rd September 2015 03:45 AM

CHENNAI: Pro-active suggestions of a special task force appointed by the Human Resource Development (MHRD) ministry to study the increasing incidence of suicides in IITs, NITs and IIMs have still not been implemented even as more and more cases continue to be registered, according to members of the panel.

“We had recommended a counselling system which not only advises students, but also identifies advance indications of people under stress, who are likely to commit suicide. Four years have gone, it has not been implemented,” said chairperson of the task-force professor M Anandakrishnan. This is common among post-graduate students entering IITs and NITs after graduating from ‘lesser’ universities, he said.

The other important recommendation ignored by the institutes was establishing a database of incidents of suicides, Anandakrishnan said. 

A research student in IIT-Madras also pointed out how the institutes want to brush these issues under the carpet, instead of speaking about it in the open. “Fellow students come to know many days later about the death of students. This is the state of affairs,” the student said. The database should not only have numbers, but a comprehensive one providing details of why a student committed suicide in addition to the social, economic and educational background of the victim, Anandakrishnan told Express.

Task force member and psychiatrist Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar said the reason that most PG students commit suicide was either thesis related issues or some problems with their guides or supervisors. “Other reasons include language proficiency and interpersonal problems with their parents who might have wanted them to go for work but they preferred studying further,” said Dr Lakshmi, who also heads the suicide prevention NGO Sneha.

The report also pointed out that these students who might have been toppers in their village or college suddenly feel equal or less in an IIT and end up getting stressed because of this.

“In North India, students are cut off from reality for a year or two at coaching classes and here they are unable to cope with the infinite freedom in the institutes,” Lakshmi reasoned.