A Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr. Abdur-Rasheed Awesu, has called for mental health education as a tool to curb the rising rate of suicide in Nigeria.
Awesu, who works at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, disclosed this in Lagos while making remarks on the commemoration of the 2019 World Mental Health. He therefore stressed that there is need to change the mindset of everyone on how to maintain a good health status.
Also, Dr. Veronic Nyamali, a psychiatrist, said that life should be seen from a mixed angle of good, sweet and bad. Nyamali said that suicide should not be an option to end one’s life, the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s statistics show that one million people died of suicide on yearly basis.
She further revealed that factors associated with suicide include: Biological, Medical, Social, Genetic and psychological. She said that when these factors occurred, attention should be given to the families of the bereaved, not to be hammering on what the victim used in taking his or her life.
However psychiatrist enjoined the governments to put up a unit in the hospital environment to be dealing with cases of suicide and also employed media organization to play a vital role by passing information across to whosoever that is going through one challenge or the other that suicide is not the best option.