Parents back open debate about suicide

The Chief Coroner's call for debate on the media's reporting of suicide has sparked a big response from families affected by the hidden tragedy and those who work with them.

The Chief Coroner, Judge Neil MacLean, told The Press this week that suicide claimed more lives than road crashes, but received little attention.

"My personal view is that there's room for some gentle opening up of things ... but it probably requires legislative change to restore the balance, and that's a matter for a conscience vote in Parliament," he said.

Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said yesterday he was "sympathetically disposed" to the Chief Coroner's call and would raise the issue at the next meeting of the ministerial committee on suicide prevention.

"I am very open to what he is saying," Dunne said. "We need to take away the `mystery' of suicide without sensationalising or glorifying it."

The founding chairman of the Youth Suicide Awareness Trust, Gregory Fortuin, said yesterday: "The current rules surrounding the media's reporting of suicides do not work."

The trust was launched in 1997 by parents who had lost young people through suicide, and Fortuin said some people feared it would lead to copycat suicides.

He said there was no increase in suicide numbers in the seven years the trust had operated.

Overwhelmingly, parents wanted awareness raised, he said. "How can you inform parents of the telltale signs if there is a total veil of secrecy in the media?"

Many Press readers have written in to share their stories of loss and call for greater discussion.

Nelson widow Gaile Noonan said that before her husband's death she realised he was "particularly unwell" and she briefly wondered about the possibility of him taking his life.

She dismissed the thought because "people don't do that".

"I believe my reliance was because suicide does go unreported," Noonan said. "It is truly shocking that the suicide rate is higher than the road death numbers."

A Christchurch woman wrote to thank The Press for highlighting the issue.

"It does seem to be a taboo subject and I would like to say that having had the situation in my own family of my father doing this when I was 25 years old, the consequences for family members are overwhelming," she said.

"We were unaware that my father was contemplating such a thing, and his death destroyed the family unit of five.

"To this day, I feel it is not something I can openly discuss for fear of being frowned upon."

She said there needed to be greater community support for families affected by suicide.

The Chief Coroner said the number of New Zealanders taking their lives was about 540 a year, 50 per cent higher than the road toll.

He released tables, published by The Press yesterday, showing the methods used by people who took their own lives, and breakdowns of suicides by age groups, gender and ethnicity.

Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of the Newspaper Publishers' Association and secretary of the Media Freedom Committee, said New Zealand had one of the most restrictive reporting regimes for suicide in the world but still had one of the highest suicide rates, suggesting the current approach was not working.

Journalists are bound by the Coroners Act 2006 and Ministry of Health guidelines, which, among other recommendations, say they should avoid "sensationalising, glamorising or romanticising suicide or giving it undue prominence".

- © Fairfax NZ News