Canadian psychiatrist continues suicide-prevention campaign

Need to build a national network

Chinese people are wary of developing cancer, heart disease and AIDS, but ignore mental disease and suicide, Phillips said. “It is necessary to build a national suicide-prevention network. Society must realize that suicide is a problem as severe as cancers and ADS,” Phillips said during his speech last Sunday.

The same year his study on schizophrenia and suicide was published, Phillips worked with local experts to establish the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center. They immediately drew up an eight-year plan to build a national suicide-prevention network.

The center opened a national suicide-prevention hotline, which is now staffed by more than 40 trained counselors. Two or three times a year, it sponsors activities for the relatives of suicide victims.

This is the program’s eighth year and the road has been litteed with challenges. “It takes time to change people’s attitude toward suicide and to educate psychiatrists,” Phillips said.

But going forward is the only way to move. “If possible, we will organize an association for pople whose relatives committed suicide, because they also need mental health care,” Phillips said.