Bangalore: With the number of suicides in the country on the rise year after year, experts are of the view that there is an urgent need to check easy access to the means to commit suicide, both by the Government and the NGOs.

"Stringent measures must be taken by the Government to ensure that easily available means of suicide like tranquillisers, life-threatening drugs and strong pesticides are not available off the shelf," says Dr Mohan Issac, Prof and Head of the Department of National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).

According to National Crime Records Bureau statistics, the number of suicides in the country is 11.5 per one lakh while in States like Pondicherry and Kerala it is 33 per 1 lakh.

"There is an urgent need on the part of the Government and NGOs to conduct public education and awareness programmes to check the rising number of suicides," says Dr Issac.

"The Government should conduct training programmes for health workers and doctors in the primary health care centres besides establishing mental health clinics focussing on suicides," he says.

"Suicides are not confined to any particular strata. In India, mostly youngsters in the age group of 15 to 29 have been found to take the extreme step.

"People are no longer able to cope with the rapidity of changes around them, be it social or economical," he says.

"As far as celebrities are concerned, there is a very thin line between the real and the illusory. They always try to keep up a false image and are under tremendous stress as even their private life is under constant public gaze," he adds.

Mental healthcare experts feel the stigma associated with seeking medical help for psychological problems is a universal phenomenon. They feel the need to sensitise doctors to identify such patients through informal training programmes.

"Imparting inputs in education like life skills, training volunteers, boosting the health surveillance system and education through the media are the other ways in which the rising number of suicides can be checked," Dr Issac says.

In Bangalore, NIMHANS, a premier mental health care institute, has been instrumental in providing technical expertise to 'Sahai', the only suicide help line in the city.

"The two-year old help line being run by a NGO has 32 volunteers who have been trained by NIMHANS," Latha Jacob of 'Sahai' says.

"The volunteers include retired persons, housewives, professionals and even students. They undergo a 30-hour training so that they can provide the adequate counselling to callers in distress," she says.

The training lays stress on active listening, as the person who calls wants to be heard. Facilitative skills like empathising, listening, understanding and avoiding judgement and analytical responses are imparted.

To make this service known, awareness programmes are conducted in schools, colleges and corporate houses with the caller given the confidence that there is someone he can talk to without fear of being identified, Jacob says.

"Sahai, a 24-hour service has received over 1120 distress calls from people of all walks of life, mostly youngsters," she says.

Dr Issac feels that sensational media coverage of issues is also responsible for "copy cat suicides" where "not only does the consequence determine the act, but the act itself is in blindly following what others do."