WARNING: This article discusses suicide and mental health. If you need help, contact Lifeline on 0800 543 354 or text 4357 [HELP].
Wairarapa has the highest suspected suicide rates in New Zealand, statistics recently released by the Chief Coroner have revealed.
Nationally, 565 people died by suspected suicide in the year to June 30, 2023 – a national rate of 10.6 people per 100,000.
The rate in Wairarapa during the same period was 25.6 per 100,000 – or 13 suspected suicides, based on an estimated population of 50,000.
The health agency has stressed that it only has figures for the rates of suspected suicide available from June 30, 2018, onwards because – as a Ministry of Health [MoH] spokesperson explained – a death can’t be confirmed as a suicide until the coroner completes an inquiry, and there’s currently a backlog.
“The Chief Coroner has noted delays in the time it is taking them to determine cause of death, and the backlog of cases has been growing in recent years,” the MoH spokesperson said.
New Zealand Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon has pledged $5 million to the I Am Hope Foundation’s Gumboot Friday, the annual fundraiser for which is being held this Friday, November 3.
While the funding will help the initiative provide more free counselling for young people struggling with their mental health, I Am Hope founder Mike King said the problem isn’t going away.
Although the new stats show Wairarapa has a higher rate of suspected suicides than other areas, King said it doesn’t matter where someone comes from.
“It’s an epidemic that’s happening up and down the country,” he said.
“Kids are running around thinking they need to be happy, and if they’re not – then they think they’re broken.”
The past two years of figures suggest a substantial jump in suicides in Wairarapa, from 12.4 per 100,000 in 2021/2022 to 25.6 in 2022/2023, but King doesn’t believe the numbers released by Te Whatu Ora accurately reflect the real number of people who die by suicide.
Death by autocide is not included in the self-inflicted deaths statistics for example, King said [in response, the MoH spokesperson said that a coroner must launch an inquiry with any suspected suicide and that they “must be satisfied to the requisite legal standard that when the deceased person took the actions they did, they did so knowing that they would die, and intending that consequence”.]
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty is dismayed that Wairarapa has one of the highest rates of suicide in the country.
“There wouldn’t be a family that hasn’t been impacted by mental health,” he said.
“This is why it’s essential that we continue the funding coming into the region. Mental health requires continued investment.”
Wairarapa MP-elect Mike Butterick, meanwhile, said mental health is a high priority for the National Party.
“We take mental health very, very seriously,” he said.
“We will have a dedicated mental health minister.”
National also plans to implement a Mental Health Innovation Fund that will deliver faster access to mental health services for New Zealanders by funding community providers and non-governmental organisations.
From King’s point of view, something certainly needs to change: “There is more than enough money in the system to at least make a dent in the problem, but we keep funding the same failure over and over and over again,” he said.
Early intervention and an overhaul in the messaging to adolescents are some of the things King said will help.
The bureaucracy at government agencies like Te Whatu Ora hinders the response to mental health and the reporting of correct and accurate information, King said.
“The figures have to be accurate; everything has to be accurate, and they’re not ’cause no one [at Te Whatu Ora] knows that the f*** is going on.”
In 2020, a UNICEF ‘Report Card’ found that New Zealand had the second worst rate of adolescent suicide in the OECD, despite the Ministry of Health having announced that 2020 saw a significant decrease in self-inflicted deaths.
New Zealand’s adolescent suicide rate in 2020 was 14.9 per 100,000 – more than twice the average among the 41 OECD countries studied.
