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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-04-07 Daily Xml
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SUICIDE

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Health. With regard to today's Advertiser front page, are there other instances of a person with a mental health issue presenting to The Queen Elizabeth Hospital not being admitted and then a short time later taking their own life?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:52): I do have some respect for the member for Morphett, but that, even by the standards of this place, was a really unfortunate question. We are dealing with the loss of a young man's life, which is on the front page of the media today. Of course, that is a tragic event for his family and friends. I take this opportunity to offer my condolences to his family and friends, at least one of whom works in this place and has already spoken to me about it.

I assure the house that a full review is now being undertaken by the Adelaide health service. Of course, the matter will have to go to the Coroner as well. It will be up to the Coroner to determine whether or not a coronial investigation should occur. It would also be inappropriate to discuss the personal details of this particular case because it would be premature to draw any conclusions.

I think this was the unfortunate thing about the media reporting this morning. Clearly, the media was relying on somebody else's conclusions which were drawn. It is often easy to say that A happened, B happened, then C happened, therefore C was caused by A and B, but there is a whole lot of other things—X, Y, Zs—that occur in a case which we do not necessarily know about.

I am absolutely certain that the doctors and nurses and others at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital who dealt with this gentleman on a variety of occasions provided the very best care that they could. I am also advised—and I think this was not in the report in the paper this morning—that Mr Cologne had seen a private psychiatrist the day prior to his death. I am advised that the last health professional he saw was, in fact, a private psychiatrist. I am not drawing any conclusions from that, but I am just saying that to make it clear that the last site that he sought medical help from was not the QEH, so we cannot draw any conclusions. I am not sure exactly what the member for Morphett is fishing for. No doubt he will come up with some next question which will highlight some other death that he is aware of. Any loss of life by self-harm is absolutely appalling. There is a very big issue in our community, and it was reported, I think, in the press today that there are more deaths by suicide than by motor car.

There is a question about how we should talk about these issues in the community. The media has tended not to, over recent years, deal with these issues for very sensible reasons, because there is a fear of copycat behaviour. Perhaps the media has gone too far, in a sense, because we do not talk about suicide at all, and it does need to be brought out into the open.

The fear in the past has been what the media used to do years and years ago, to give intricate details of a particular suicide. If there are 150-plus suicides a year and details of each of those suicides was provided in the media, that might create an atmosphere where suicide by those who are depressed is seen as a reasonable way out and might encourage copycat behaviour. That is always the fear, and we have certainly seen that in relation to members in Aboriginal communities in the past in this state, so there is a very fine line.

We do need, in my view, to have an open discussion about suicide, and about what we can do to assist people who are feeling so unwell that they are wanting to take their own lives. I know there was a discussion in the other place yesterday, I think, in relation to this, and I have certainly asked my agency—before this incident—to do some work about how we can better deal with some of these kinds of issues, and also, of course, provide support to people who are vulnerable.

There are a whole range of services available; telephone lines 24 hours a day, emergency departments of hospitals, and a whole range of other services being established. However, it is just not possible to always prevent somebody killing themselves when that is what they choose to do. It is tragic and deeply regrettable, and we will do whatever we can to try and minimise the number of events that occur.

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