The Government began to consider
the management of suicide in Argentina
with an
epidemiological logic
, for which reason it urged all the provinces to notify these events in a
unified
information system in which all the circumstances in which each episode occurs must be recorded.
The action was confirmed in the last National Epidemiological Bulletin, from week 16, which shows
the file
that health care providers must complete each time
a situation in which a person has taken their own life or attempted to commit suicide falls
under their orbit.
do it.
There, a suicide attempt is defined as "any behavior for which there is
evidence, implicit or explicit
, of intent to cause death."
The Health Surveillance System file must contain the data of the
notifying
health institution and
the person involved
, in addition to reporting whether it was fatal or not.
Precisely, one of the problems of public policies against suicide is that there are no
updated and precise
statistical data .
The latest figures, from 2019, indicate that the local rate was 7.3 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
In previous years the incidence was similar, but
there are no post-pandemic data
.
The rate in Argentina is
lower than the world average
, which the World Health Organization estimates at
11 per 100,000 inhabitants
.
In South America there are countries with lower suicide rates than Argentina, such as Brazil, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia.
And others with a higher rate, such as Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The cover of the latest Epidemiological Bulletin highlights the issue of suicide as a public health problem.
In absolute numbers, during the
period 2010-2019
there were
31,847 deaths by suicide in Argentina
, according to information from the Directorate of Health Statistics and Information of the National Ministry of Health (DEIS).
This means 3,185 suicides per year and 8 per day, which means
one every 3 hours
.
The Ministry of Health explained that "suicide represents
a growing and priority public health problem
both globally and regionally, it implies a complex, multi-causal phenomenon, in which various factors (biological, psychological, social, cultural and environmental) interact." .
The objective of the Argentine State to
combat suicides
has been going on for several years, but the intention was never fully realized.
In 2015, the National Suicide Prevention Law
(No. 27,130) was enacted
, whose objective is "to reduce the incidence and prevalence of suicide, through prevention, assistance and post-vention" (
N. de la R: actions and interventions after a self-destructive event
).
Said law promotes "creating a
registration system
that contains statistical information on suicide attempts, suicides committed, cause of death, age, sex, monthly evolution, modality used and all other data of interest for the purpose of improving
information statistics
, which will be provided by the sectors dedicated to the problem of suicide, public and private.
It also says that "cases of suicide and the causes of death
must be reported
to the nearest health authority."
Only in 2021 did Decree 603 regulate Law 27,130, which promotes the unification of records on this subject.
Now that will begin to be put into practice and the cases will be filed in the
Argentine Integrated Health Information System
(SISA).
The file that health centers must fill out every time a case of suicide or attempted suicide occurs.
Since the declaration of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, the WHO has been warning about the
effects on people's mental health
, which are becoming evident as a result of an unprecedented health crisis.
"These warnings include the projection of the effects mentioned in the
medium and long term
," argued the Ministry of Health in the bulletin.
WHO data indicates that
one in every 100 deaths
in the world is due to suicide.
Considered a "silent epidemic", it also represents the fourth leading cause of death among young people between the ages of 15 and 29.
In this context, the Government announced that it is also trying
to set up free telephone lines
to listen to critical situations and urged social and prepaid projects to provide
assistance coverage
to people who have been victims of attempted suicide and their families.
As for the objectives of surveillance with mandatory notification of these events, they include: “Estimate the
magnitude of the event
in time, person and place;
epidemiologically characterize
suicide attempts;
identify populations or risk groups to
strengthen control and prevention activities
;
and provide the information to procure follow-up actions for people who have been victims of suicide attempts and their relatives”.
To speed up the suicide data unification plan, the Ministry reported that the Comprehensive Suicide Approach Program and the Epidemiology Department began preparatory meetings with the provincial teams of the Southern and Central regions, to later continue with the provinces
of
the
NEA, NOA and Whose.
PS
look also
The disease that two million Argentines suffer without knowing it and kills 400 per year
"Fake dementia": the fashionable phrase opens a debate on humor and mental health
