大象传媒 Scotland - 大象传媒 Scotland - Bereaved father: 鈥楳y son wasn鈥檛 asked this life-saving question鈥�

Bereaved father: 鈥楳y son wasn鈥檛 asked this life-saving question鈥�

21 May 2019

It’s the biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK, but could some suicides be prevented if all GPs asked one simple question?

Speaking on Debate Night, one bereaved father said, “GPs don’t currently automatically ask the question ‘Are you feeling suicidal?’.

“My son took his own life and he wasn’t asked that question.”

Lorien Cameron-Ross, a GP on the programme’s panel, responded, "If a patient comes in with any kind of depression or mental health problem, the GP should be asking that question.”

She argued that some GPs find it a difficult question to ask.

Patients are often relieved to be asked.

Dr Lorien Cameron-Ross

“GPs are human too. For some people that’s a hard question to ask someone.

“People think sometimes, if they ask them, that it will give them the idea but we know that’s not the case.

“It’s my experience that patients are often relieved to be asked, because they don’t want to say it out loud.”

Dr Cameron-Ross went on to explain, “In fact, about two thirds of suicides that are completed in Scotland don’t go anywhere near a mental health worker.”

The programme was recorded in Inverness, around which – in the Highlands, Islands and Moray – suicide rates are on the rise, compared with a slight downturn across Scotland.

“There’s something gone wrong where people think they don’t have any other alternative.”