Mr. Speaker, I will be speaking to suicide today. Before I start, I want to give people an opportunity to turn down the volume or remove themselves from the Chamber if they prefer not to listen.
Mr. Speaker, I like numbers because they compel evidencebased decisionmaking, so here are some numbers.
The World Health Organization estimates one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds. Over 4,000 Canadians die by suicide every year. That's 11 people every day. 70 percent of mental health problems arise during childhood or adolescence, and 75 percent of children with mental disorders do not have access to specialized treatment services. Indigenous youth are five to six times more likely to die by suicide than nonIndigenous youth. And suicide rates for Inuit youth are among the highest globally, at 11 times the national average.
Mr. Speaker, I have spoken in this House before about youth mental health emergencies. I explained that if a child broke their arm, they would be given an xray, a cast, pain medication, instructions for cast care, and told what to do if they need more support. But what happens when a child's injury is mental and not physical?
Through multiple anecdotes, I learned the typical emergency room response to a suicide attempt is to physically put the person back together and then request a call to the patient from the community counsellor. If it is a long weekend, that call is a minimum four days away, and the call back is the only support tool provided.
This is a gap, Mr. Speaker. Northerners need immediate aftercare in these traumatic moments.
The Health and Social Services mental health and addictions team brings together various support platforms, expertise, and grassroots funding, but these tools or programs are not communicated to Northerners in crisis mode. There is no space for designing safety plans or discussing next steps. The standard hospital emergent response to suicide attempts is not enough.
Mr. Speaker, many of our children are not okay. Suicide is a common conversation among youth across our territory and across demographics. In the NWT, roughly 160 to 180 people use hospital services every year following suicide attempts. Each of these instances are calls for help with the gift of a second chance.
If mental health is health, we need to ensure that mental health supports and immediate emergency aftercare is accessible at our hospitals and our health centres. We owe it to the people of the Northwest Territories not to waste these second chances. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Members' statements. Member for Frame Lake.
