Proper care at right time can prevent suicides

Danish Nabi
Srinagar, May 10: Charming smile on her dull-looking face and the whisper of the lips “han mai jeena chahti hon (yes I want to live)” is proof enough that at least one innocent life has been saved from falling prey to suicides.
As the twenty year old Shaista Amin (name changed), whose lean and weak physique makes her look younger than her age, enters the doctors’ room at Psychiatric disease hospital, it is with a desire to live and get well. But it was not the case when she was brought to the hospital earlier this month in a state of acute depression and intending suicide.
“When we decided to brought her here she put a condition to it that the doctor must poison her in the hospital,” Shaista’s much relieved father, Muhammad Amin (name changed), said.
Shaista, according to her father, was “always ill” and she had been under treatment of noted psychiatrist in the town. Despite being on medication, she had often attempted to commit suicide in the past. And she had done the same before she was brought to the hospital.
“She stopped taking food, water and even medicine for 14 to 15 days just with the intention of dying. Her condition had started to deteriorate and we took her to the doctor, who gave her medicine. Such was her condition that she swallowed the medicine without taking water,” Muhammad Amin narrates.
“But even that didn’t help her as she abandoned food and medicine again. When her condition deteriorated alarmingly, I put my head on her feet and begged her to let us take her to the hospital. We had no option but to accept the condition she put for agreeing to go to the hospital,” he said.
After treatment Shaista is eager to live and her desire to get well makes her seek doctor’s advice on uneasiness she faces: “I often stop my breath for long time that makes me feel uneasy. Please help me come over it so that I can go home and live peacefully.”
There have been several cases of suicides in the past and the number of victims is rising alarmingly. In a recent incidence, a 10th standard student of Burn Hall Public School strangulated himself due to academic  pressures.
An analysis by psychiatrists has shown most number of unnatural deaths after the start of militancy in Kashmir has taken place due to suicides. And there is an outcry against rising umber of suicides from all walks of life including pro-freedom leaders like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who often quotes it as an example of moral degradation of the society.
Psychiatrists feel that suicides can be avoided if the family is keen to do it.
“The people with suicide tendencies are always read to harm and hurt themselves. If the family picks up the signal and brings them to the doctor for treatment, their lives can be saved,” Shaista’s doctor at Psychiatry disease hospital told Greater Kashmir.
“All deaths because of suicide are preventable. We as society and community should do everything possible to prevent deaths because of suicides,” psychiatrists say.