Hera Diani, Jakarta – Medical experts warned Tuesday that Indonesia's rising suicide rate was representative of the declining level of mental health in the country.
They said public awareness about mental health was so poor that people did not seek professional help until illnesses had reached an advanced stage.
The experts, from the University of Indonesia, the World Health Organization and the Health Ministry, were addressing a seminar held in conjunction with World Mental Health Day on Tuesday.
Official nation-wide suicide statistics are unavailable, but in Jakarta, from 1995 through 2004, the rate was 5.8 suicides per 100,000 people. In 2003, the WHO noted that in many countries, suicide was one of the top three causes of death among people aged between 15 and 35 years.
WHO psychiatrist Albert Maramis said friends and relatives were frequently unaware of a person's mental illness until he or she committed suicide. He added that a mental illness increased the possibility of someone committing suicide by up to 10 times.
Irmansyah, the head of the University of Indonesia's school of psychiatry, said people needed to be more sensitive to those with mental health problems such as depression, stress or anxiety.
"When people talk about their bad feelings," Irmansyah said, "you need to heed them. When children refuse to go to school, maybe they are having a problem with social acceptance and it is a serious matter because, as it has been proven, it can lead to suicide when the problem is not solved."
Children as young as 10 have committed suicide in recent years in Indonesia.
Irmansyah also urged people to pay attention to new mothers, as what can seem like normal baby blues can lead to post-natal depression.
"When it's been going on for one to two years, only then will people seek help. There's a patient who was admitted to hospital after having hallucinations for 15 years," he said. "Worse still, when the patients have recovered, the families don't want to have them back. The mentally ill are still stigmatized and many end up on the streets."
An estimated 12 to 18 percent of Indonesians suffer from some sort of mental illness, Irmansyah said. The WHO has projected that by 2020, mental illnesses will be the biggest health problem facing developing countries.
G. Pandu Setiawan, the Health Ministry's mental health service director, said the country needed mental illness prevention programs.
"People with mental health problems lose their productivity, perhaps for a long time. Data released in 1997 showed that Indonesia lost Rp 31 trillion through productivity loss and medication costs caused by mental illness," he said.