Materia Medica Malaysiana

2,500 commit suicide every year

About 2,500 Malaysians commit suicide every year, mainly due to depression.
Most overdose on drugs, hang themselves or inhale carbon monoxide.
Malaysian Psychiatric Association president Dr Maniam Thambu, who revealed this, added: "Nowadays, an increasing number of people are jumping off buildings."
Dr Maniam said a study on suicides in Kuala Lumpur some years ago showed that more people were jumping off buildings because there were many high-rises in the city.
He said 90 per cent of people who killed themselves suffered from depression, adding that this was a glaring warning about the danger of depression.
Mental illness is in second place on the global list of top diseases, after heart diseases, and if present trends continue, it will be a major problem in Malaysia.
Worried about the trend, the association is working out various strategies in collaboration with the Health Ministry and the Befrienders.
Among the proposals is to treat those suffering from depression more effectively and to reduce public access to poisons such as the weed killer, paraquat.
"We would also like to request that the Health Ministry propose to the Cabinet that websites encouraging suicide be blocked," said Dr Maniam at the 11th Malaysian Conference on Psychological Medicine.
Deputy director-general of Health Datuk Dr Abdul Ghani Mohammed Din opened the conference. Dr Maniam said: "Five years ago if you typed the word ‘suicide’ into a search engine, you would have had 700,000 entries. Now you will get more than four million."
Dr Maniam said some of these websites even offered step-by-step tips on how to take one own’s life using various methods.
At a Press conference later, he recalled a letter he received from a father in the United States who found his teenage son lying dead on a table in his room.
On the son’s computer was a page offering a "how to" procedure on committing suicide.