The COVID-19 pandemic has created a world environment that is harsh and seriously detrimental for everyone, but have you ever wondered how difficult was it for the frontline workers? This is the most important time to focus on suicide prevention. It’s time actions should be taken to prevent these tragedies on a global scale.
Every year, suicide is among the top 20 causes of death around the globe for people of all ages. It is responsible for more than 800,000 deaths, which comes down to one suicide every 40 seconds. Every life lost is someone’s partner, child, parent, friend, or colleague.
Suicide Among Doctors
Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, more than thirty doctors have died by suicide across India. Most of them were young doctors. Suicide in doctors is a complex, deep issue that has been plaguing for several decades. But, the arrival of the pandemic and its ill effects on one’s mental health has caused insult to the injury.
Doctors face different struggles at different stages of their careers that affect their mental health and physical well-being. Which in turn provokes them to choose suicide as an escape.
Interns and residents have the highest suicide rates when compared to others. Toxic environments, long working hours, no job satisfaction, and violence against doctors are a few challenges the doctors face, that eventually leads them to take such extreme steps.
High suicide rates in medical colleges across the country surely reflect the suicidal pattern among medical students as well. Medical students and interns face exam-related stress, insomnia, bad living conditions, and competition from peers. Among students, maximum suicides usually take place during exams, showing the amount of stress and anxiety brought in by the evaluation system.
Is this pandemic adding to the tally?
A junior doctor from AIIMS committed suicide after writing a blog on his suicidal tendencies and the depression he was suffering from. His last blog suggests that he knew everything regarding his mental conditions except how to get out of it! This is one of the many other incidents that happened all over India during the pandemic.
The only way which works in these extreme situations is finding a release, whether it is music, cooking exercise or plain meditation, but the most important among these factors is finding someone to talk to and not losing ourselves in this chaos because let’s face it; life keeps on putting us through one challenge or the other but rather than giving up let’s try to bring some happiness for ourselves.
So never put a full stop after LIFE, follow it with a comma!
