TORONTO (AP) — A youth suicide epidemic in Ontario’s North has spread to include reserves formerly unaffected by the crisis as this year’s toll threatens to become the worst on record.
Sixteen suicides on 49 northern reserves as of July 30 could put this year’s toll above the record 26 suicides across northern Ontario last year, leaders and experts warned Monday.
The crisis has spread to communities formerly untouched by the epidemic, said one mental health supervisor.
“It’s been the worst year to date in a six-month period,” said Arnold Devlin, mental health supervisor at Dilico, a First Nations mental health agency in Thunder Bay, Ontario
“It speaks to the need for a regionwide suicide protocol.”
Such a protocol, which would include such basics as crisis response, counseling, media strategies and prevention, is even more critical after four suicides this year in Muskrat Dam First Nation, one in Sandy Lake First Nation and one at Pelican Falls High School in Sioux Lookout, Ontario
Those areas were previously untouched by the crisis, Devlin said.
