National Emergency – Suicide Rates for Our Men

With special guest:

• Anthony Smith
  … in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson

1901 male deaths by suicide were recorded in 2012 along with another 634 females meaning a total of 2,535 Australians lost their lives in this way. There has been no significant improvement in the period since these figures became available.

Our guest today, Anthony Smith, argues that these figures are conservative and the belief of the people working in this area is that the figure for men should be some 500 higher. Reasons for this conservatism include the shortfall in the number of Coronial enquiries and the general reluctance of Coroners to brand a sudden death as suicide because this only makes it harder for the surviving family members to deal with the tragedy.

Yet even on the numbers we have available it is hard to understand how we could allow so many men to die from this cause without there being headlines in the newspapers. There is more coverage when a whale beaches on an isolated sandy shore.

The majority of suicides (close to 80%) are men and current policy and practice are not only unhelpful to many men but may actually compound the difficulties that men face. Anthony Smith discusses in our program how unemployment is a recognised social factor in a large percentage of suicides.

We learn in this program that simply labelling all suicides as due to depression is simplistic, even lazy. If it were that simple the dispensing of anti-depressants would solve the problem. Where we need to make a start is with male-friendly services and then we should take a look at the recognised factors. These often come back to feelings of powerlessness and include being out of the workforce, relationship breakdown, alcohol and sexuality.

While it is important to remember that one person is not responsible for another’s suicide there are some practical steps that we can take if we suspect someone we know is at risk. Anthony Smith tells us not just what the problem is but what we can do about it. Listeners may want to refer to the booklet written by Anthony with Dr John Ashfield and Luke Bain called “Preventing Male Suicide: Become Part of the Solution”.

If after listening to this program you realise that you or a friend need urgent help there are resources available.

For assistance you can go to:

Lifeline 13 11 14

MensLine 1300 78 99 78

BeyondBlue 1300 22 46 36

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800

Anthony Smith

Anthony Smith has established a national profile in men’s issues across men’s health, suicide prevention and re-employment for middle-aged men. He has his own consultancy Silver Line Consulting and is Menswatch Manager Training/Education for the Australian Institute of Male Health & Studies. He is currently an Industry Partner for the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Suicide Prevention. Anthony has authored and co-authored several papers and Reports on men and suicide including the “Pathways to Despair: a study of male suicide (aged 25-44)” and “Men, unemployment and suicide” in the 2013 Mental Health Reform document “Obsessive Hope Disorder”. In June 2011 Anthony was the keynote speaker at the South Korea LifeLine Conference on “Suicide Prevention- Community Networks” where he spoke about the achievements of the Suicide Safety Network from the Central Coast of NSW.

Song selection by our guest: Security by The Saints

Note: The program is a repeat of the one aired on 10 September 2015.

Podcast (mp3)