Indigenous Health 2017: "We are failing because the government is focusing only on the tipping point of suicide when we need to be looking at the causal narrative also"

IndigenousX, September 2017:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has today released its 2016 Causes of Death data which includes annual national suicide information. Analysis provided by Mindframe revealed that 162 (119 male, 43 female) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died by suicide, which is slightly higher than the 152 recorded in 2015.

Suicide was the 5th leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across NSW, QLD, SA, WA and NT, compared to the 15th leading cause of death for non-Indigenous people in these states. In these states, the standardised death rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (23.8 per 100,000) was more than twice the non-Indigenous rate (11.4 per 100,000).

Limited data is available for VIC, TAS and the ACT due to relatively small numbers in comparison to the other states.

According to Gerry Georgatos, a suicide prevention researcher and prison reform advocate, the data fails to take into account deaths classified as “Other”, which are often through drug or alcohol use, overdose or misadventure. The data, if it truly reflected the reality on the ground, would depict the real number as 1 in 10 Indigenous deaths is by suicide, not 1 in 18 as the national data suggests.

Georgatos says: “We are failing because the government is focusing only on the tipping point of suicide when we need to be looking at the causal narrative also. The causal narrative, of course is the deep, deep poverty and inequality.” He says that the government is doing next to nothing to address the fact that there is gross inequality not only between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, but even within Indigenous communities themselves.

“We need to not only address suicide and trauma, but we need to give people something to live for by lifting them out of entrenched poverty and support them through addressing their trauma with treatment from a place of opportunity,” he says.

Georgatos is of the view that the systemic failures are translating as clear toxic racism: “When you see remote non-Indigenous communities provided with services and infrastructure, but Indigenous communities a mere 50km away with nothing – it is a clear indication that racism is at play.”

Georgatos says that the crisis is not improving, as many governmental advisers and stakeholders tend to suggest, but worsening with children as young as 9-years-old taking their life through suicide, as well as countless others experiencing depression and suicidal ideation. He believes that we do Indigenous people a disservice if we continue with the falsehoods of improvement……

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