"Suicide is a dramatic consequence of certain mental health problems," the World Health Organization (WHO) states, pointing out that more than a billion people worldwide suffer from such disorders, most commonly anxiety and depression. "Suicide accounts for every hundredth death in the world, and in 2021 it claimed the lives of around 727.000 people," said Devora Kestel, head of the WHO's Department of Mental Health, at a press conference on September 2, 2025.
The latest WHO report highlights that "suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 29, after road accidents, tuberculosis and violence."
There has been very poor progress in achieving one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015, to reduce the global suicide rate by 2030. According to WHO data, between 2000 and 2021, the global suicide rate decreased by 35 percent. The decline was recorded everywhere except in the United States, where, during the same period, the suicide rate increased by 17 percent.
“Adapting mental health clinics is one of the most urgent public health challenges,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Investing in mental health is investing in people, communities, economies, and is an investment that no country can afford to ignore. Every government has a responsibility to act urgently and ensure that mental health care is not treated as a privilege, but as a fundamental right for all,” said Ghebreyesus. (kossev.info)
Given the devastating statistics and the fact that only 38 countries in the world have a suicide prevention strategy, at the initiative of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, with the support of the WHO, since 2003, September 10 has been marked as World Suicide Prevention Day, because this problem requires continuous attention from all segments of every society in the world.
According to WHO data from five years ago, Montenegro ranked 100.000th in the world in terms of the number of suicide victims per 14 inhabitants, and has always been among the top ten countries in Europe. Over the past five years (2020 to 2024), 545 people committed suicide in Montenegro, which is a worrying figure. According to media reports, at the end of 2023, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution on Mental Health, the aim of which is to improve health infrastructure, increase the availability of services and health personnel, and reduce the number of suicides by a third by 2030.
Where is Montenegro as a future EU member? The public health system as a whole is not only poor and understaffed, but it is also so poorly organized that it itself, in part, contributes to the increase in the number of mental patients. All our psychiatrists, psychotherapists and psychologists are not sufficient or powerful enough to mitigate the consequences caused by the fault of the entire society and state institutions, which have created all the prerequisites for citizens to become ill.
If we live our whole lives in stressful and turbulent times, if the rates of poverty, unemployment, domestic violence, crime, alcoholism, drug addiction... are constantly increasing, we cannot talk about a decrease in the number of suicides in Montenegro. The emphasis is on mental health, but suicide victims are not only mentally ill citizens. Victims of violence and domestic violence, abandoned elderly people, single people, people ostracized from the social community, relatives after a tragic event in the family, patients in the terminal phase of illness, patients with extremely painful physical illnesses... and many others are prone to suicide.
The disintegration of the family as the basic unit of society, the withering away of care for the elderly, including parents, the unwillingness to sacrifice, the lack of empathy and solidarity, which, sporadically, amazes us, the stigma and reluctance of the sick to confide in someone, and everything that distances people from others, increases the number of unhappy people who are ready to take their own lives. Families whose member has committed suicide experience severe psychological consequences, due to the family tragedy and the stigma. Thus, the number of mental patients increases drastically.
Our public health system has a solid number of psychiatric and psychological professionals, but insufficient space and the lack of care on the part of those responsible for the mental health of citizens are the causes of slow progress in this area. In mental health centers, patients are mainly treated with medication, and there is not enough time to talk to experts. Families of patients, who also need psychological help, lack education on how to deal with a mentally ill family member...
Private psychiatric, psychotherapy and psychological practices are available to a very small number of patients, because the majority of sufferers come from poorer strata of society, where the greatest number of causes of mental illness and other human troubles lie.
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