The Nationalist Party today once again called on the government to set up a Crisis Intervention Team to help people on the verge of committing suicide.
In a statement on World Suicide Prevention Day, the PN said that a suicide is committed somewhere around the world once every 40 seconds, and this rate will double in the next years. One also has to remember that for every suicide that is successful, there are another 20 attempted suicides.
The European Union requests that every country has a strategy to prevent suicide cases. Under the Nationalist government, there was a crisis intervention team always prepared to intervene to help people on the verge of committing suicide. This team was dismantled by Labour, and the PN is insisting that it should be formed again, spokesman Mario Galea said.
The World Health Organisation is concerned about a mental health pandemic which will increase the rates of suicide, and in Malta one in every four persons is estimated to suffer from a form of mental illness.