Arabic version: منتدى في داروين يدعو إلى دعم أفضل للوقاية من الانتحار

According to ABC News, speakers at a suicide prevention forum in Darwin have challenged Northern Territory health professionals and community members to listen more effectively to people at risk of suicide. The forum came as the NT records Australia’s highest rates of suicide, acute mental illness and hospital presentations for self-harm.

Darwin mother Gertrude Jane-Knight told the forum she had repeatedly sought help for her son Felix after his first suicide attempt at age 12. Felix died last year, and Ms Jane-Knight said she had tried desperately to secure psychologist appointments while trying to keep him safe. She called on health practitioners to listen to people seeking help for loved ones, act on their experiences and be better equipped to refer families to appropriate services.

Ms Jane-Knight said services and elements that might have helped her son existed, but she was not told about them. Felix’s family and friends recently walked in his memory and described him as a “beautiful, energetic, lively, creative, hilarious human being”.

Forum co-host Karyn Moyle, founder of Waterlily Healing Indigenous Corporation, said Aboriginal people in remote communities can face compounding grief from premature deaths, intergenerational trauma and poverty. She said fly-in-fly-out mental health services could become “box-ticking” exercises when workers had not built trust, and called for investment in training more remote mental health workers who would remain in their communities.

Lidia Di Lembo, who founded Sabrina’s Reach4Life with her husband Michael after their daughter Sabrina’s death by suicide in 2017, said GPs needed the time, skills and training to support suicidal patients. She said people with lived experience, alongside the broader community, could help shape future policy for people who are struggling.