Debated in Parliament on 26 Jul 2021.
Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis asked the Minister for Health in each of the past five years (a) what is the number of suicides and attempted suicides by age group; and (b) in 2021 to date, what is the number of programmes and amount of funds dedicated specifically to suicide prevention services and promoting awareness of suicide warning signs.
The number of suicide cases by age group is publicly released in the Report on Registration of Births and Deaths by the Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA) on an annual basis. The annual number of suicide cases by age group in the past five years is summarised at Table 1.
Persons who are greatly distressed and attempt to take their own life require help and the criminal justice system may not be the best option to deal with attempted suicides. As of 1 January 2020, attempted suicide was decriminalised via the Criminal Law Reform Act 2019. The number of attempted suicides that the Police had attended to in the past five year is summarised at Table 2.
Suicide prevention spans several sectors including health, social and education, and are based on four key strategies: (a) building mental resilience; (b) encourage help seeking and early identification; (c) supporting at-risk groups; and (d) providing crisis support. Efforts under these strategies are integrated with mainstream mental health and well-being programmes implemented in various settings. These programmes received over $28 million from Government grants and community funds in Financial Year 2020.
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