Stepping off the plane at Heathrow after a long, hot journey from the United States, Paul Kelly and his wife were ushered into a small, private room by airport staff. Inside, their son Nicholas was waiting to tell them that Simon – their youngest son – had died, after taking his own life. 
“When I was told what had happened I actually didn’t believe it,” recalls Paul. “I thought he must have had a car crash. At least if he had, it might have been easier to accept.”
High suicide rates
Simon, who was just 18 at the time of his death, is one of thousands of young men who take their own lives each year. According to NHS figures, 12 men in every 100,000 in England died as a result of suicide between 2005 and 2007.
And, whilst the suicide rate was lower in London than England as a whole during this time, there were 19 male deaths per 100,000 in Islington – the highest rate of any London borough. Just like Paul and his wife, the parents, bothers, sisters and partners of these men who have committed suicide in Islington, are left wondering why their loved ones chose to end their lives.
“Class Divide”
“Suicide is usually associated with a high level of poverty but it is the extremes of wealth and poverty living side-by-side that causes the problems here,” says Dionne Wilson-Brown, an adviser at Canonbury Connect, a support service which works in the ward’s most deprived areas. “The class divide is really evident in Islington and if a male feels like he can’t meet his responsibilities in a way that someone next to him can then he can feel as if his life is spiraling out of control.”
Mental illness, relationship breakdown and unemployment can all trigger suicidal thoughts. But whose responsibility is it to help Islingtonians going through these types of difficulty? Hospitals and GPs have a vital role to play.
Compensation
In June 2009, 49-year-old Noel Davison was awarded £400,000 in compensation after Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust was found to have failed to protect Davison – a voluntary mental patient at the Whittington Hospital at the time – following a failed suicide attempt at Highgate Station.
Yet according to Rupal Karia, a volunteer at Maytree, a Finsbury Park respite centre for people feeling suicidal, the problem lies with the gap in non-medical services in Islington, rather than with the medical treatment given within hospitals. “The feeling of isolation and not having anyone to talk to is a large part of the problem for many people feeling suicidal,” she says.
And in 2008, Islington Primary Care Trust launched a campaign called ‘Ignorance is the biggest mental health problem’, to try to raise awareness of the link between mental health problems and suicide.
Suicide prevention
According to Rosemary Vaux of Papyrus, a national suicide prevention charity, more needs to be done to help men in particular feel they are able to talk about suicide. “It’s important to say it’s ok to cry and it’s ok to say how you feel; talking about suicide does not make it more likely to happen.”
Almost ten years on from Simon’s death, Paul continues to feel the pain of losing a son. “After the funeral, everybody else goes back to normal. But I am left with this deep, deep wound. You don’t expect to bury your own children, but when they take their own life this adds another layer of complexity which you just can’t understand.”
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[…] She draws breath briefly. “And that’s sitting cheek by jowl with a world in which a one-bed flat costs half-a-million pounds and private rents take up 40% of people’s incomes. And it’s in your face, this other world. The shops on Upper Street, and the cafes where coffee costs £4. If you grow up here you know you are never going to walk into that world. It’s a glass wall. And you see it come out in terms of mental health. Stress, anxiety, depression – what is that a reflection of? Why do we have that here? Why do we have the highest levels of male suicide in Britain?” […]