Kamana
Khadka, MPH
“Golden Gate Bridge board Oks $76 million for suicide barriers,”
read the headline in SFGate.
Despite
the controversies regarding $76 million investment in creating 20 feet
steel-cable suicide net, I would like to congratulate Mr. Roger Grimes who started the campaign for suicide barrier at
the Golden Gate Bridge. It was reported
that he regularly walked on the bridge with a sign reading, "Please care: support a suicide barrier"
in addition to attending several meetings. While I do hope that
placing the barrier will prove to reduce suicide rate and bring peace to family
members of 1600 individuals who jumped to death from the bridge; I cannot help
but begin to imagine the ethnicities (often minorities) of individuals who will
be involved in labor intensive and risky (perhaps hanging off the bridge in the
thin air while placing the suicide barrier) jobs during actual implementation
of the project. I would also like to
point the fact that according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), in 2010, the most common methods of suicide were firearms (50.6%), suffocation
(including hangings) (24.8%), and
poisoning (17.3%). Sarcasm apart, I certainly do hope that
this million dollars project will be successful in raising increased awareness
about suicide in general including minority communities such as the Bhutanese
in U.S.
Suicide
is among the top 10 causes of death in America.
According to CDC the reported suicide in 2011 (most recent year for
which data are available) was 39,518. The numbers drastically changed for U.S.
post Bhutanese refugee resettlement. The
global suicide rate is 16 per 100,000.
For general population, U.S. rate is 12.4 whereas its 20.3 for Bhutanese.
"If you treat them, what are you treating
them towards? If you treat them to sit in a chair all day and do nothing,
what’s the treatment?"
– Ken
Thompson, Squirrel Hill Health Center
I not only work closely with the Bhutanese community in Arizona,
but having been born in Nepal, I share a common language and culture with
them. And because we speak Nepali (common
language), often times I pitch in as a Qualified Nepali Interpreter (one who
received training to become an interpreter).
My personal opinion is that, yes, it is a mental health situation, but
working through trauma, depression, and post-traumatic syndrome disorder with
the Bhutanese is not the only concern here.
It is very important that we find something to engage them here in the
U.S. as they start their new lives. It
is wrong that 45 minutes counseling session, often with an untrained Nepali
interpreter (who omits and adds to what is being said in the room leading to
inaccurate interpretation) is the only solution for a Bhutanese man who once
the breadwinner and role model for his family (in Bhutan and Nepal), cannot
find a job in U.S. to provide for his family and is dependent on his English
speaking child for simple conversations with the outside world. We leave him hollow, helpless, and depressed
outside the session, outside the hospital, and outside the home visit.
“Most
suicide decedents were generally unemployed men who were not providers of their
family; the most common post-migration difficulties faced by the victims were
language barriers, worries about family back home, and difficulty maintaining
cultural and religious traditions,”
– Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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