In the last 4 years, more than 5,600 professionals from different fields have been trained in the Balearic Islands

Sep 10, 2022 | Current affairs, Featured, Thursday Daily Bulletin, Tradition

The Balearic Islands reinforces the suicide prevention network with three psychologists and a psychiatrist

TDB keeps you informed. Follow us on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

10 September, World Suicide Prevention Day, under the slogan “Creating hope through action”.
The Regional Coordination for Suicide Prevention reinforces the suicide prevention network with three psychologists and a psychiatrist. These professionals are in addition to the 8 professionals already employed full-time and 17 part-time. Four mental health nurses are expected to join before the end of the year.

Nicole Haber, head of the Regional Coordination for the Prevention of Suicide, stresses the importance of having specialised professionals who can respond quickly and intensively to those affected and their families. However, she stresses that it is only one piece of the whole network needed to reduce this sad reality.

The prevention network has to go beyond the health system. According to Haber, suicide is a complex problem and therefore the solution has to be complex. “It is necessary to work and implement actions at all levels of prevention: universal, selective, indicated and postvention prevention (care for people who have lost a loved one to suicide) and with the coordination of all areas, from the community, the environment and the individual, through all care systems: health, education, social services, emergencies, and with the involvement of institutions, organisations and associations, to the ordinary citizen. It is everyone’s problem and we can all contribute to prevention”.

In the last survey of the year 2020 of the National Statistics Institute (INE), the Balearic Islands recorded 87 cases of suicide, 10% less in a number of deaths by suicide compared to 2019. It is estimated that for each suicide, between 6 and 10 people in the victim’s environment are affected for life and suffer a serious grieving process. It is therefore considered a serious public health problem.

“It is important to take off the blindfold and realise that it is a reality that has been with us for as long as human beings have existed. For various reasons, this reality has remained hidden and stigmatised, and the myths and false beliefs that have been built up around it have only reinforced silence and inaction,” explains Haber.

Since its last Mental Health Strategic Plan 2016-2022, the Regional Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs has made a firm commitment to suicide prevention with the creation of a Suicide Observatory in the Health Service, which has been transformed into an Autonomous Coordination for Suicide Prevention.

Among the actions promoted by the Autonomous Coordination in the prevention, the network is an action protocol for schools and a Guide for the prevention and first approach to suicidal behaviour in schools in the Balearic Islands.

There is also a coordination programme “CoorEducaSalutMental”, between the Regional Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs and the Regional Ministry of Education and Professional Training, which intervenes in the management and coordination of all cases that are detected in schools and which require a referral, guidelines for approach, two-way communication between schools, primary care, mental health services, specialised suicide prevention teams (APS) and other services that may be involved. It is responsible for coordinating and providing training and information to all those involved.

Suprasectorial team of care and suicide prevention (APS)

The public hospitals of Mallorca and the health areas of Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera, along with the Management of SAMU 061, have suicide prevention and care teams (APS). These are specialised multi-professional teams that offer specific and intensive treatment focused on suicide prevention. The programme aims to intervene with people with suicidal ideation who are at risk of suicide or who have made a previous suicide attempt. It is highly specialised and intensive outpatient care (3 to 6 months), with individual and group therapeutic interventions.

The professionals carry out an interdisciplinary approach based on psychotherapeutic, psychosocial, psychoeducational and psychopharmacological interventions, and in coordination with the necessary resources from the fields of education, social services, child protection services and health. After a psychiatric assessment in the emergency department, the person can be referred to the programme and in this case a PHC professional will contact them or their family within 24-72 hours and they will have an appointment within 7-10 days.