Dr Allwell Orji recently committed suicide
hmmm....... Against
the backdrop of the incessant suicide by Nigerians especially after a
medical doctor jumped inside the Lagos lagoon, a psychologist, has
advised Nigerians on the best way to avert suicide.
A Clinical Psychologist, Mr Adedotun Ajiboye, has advised
relations, friends and colleagues of persons suffering from depression
to be extra vigilant to avert incidents of suicide.
Ajiboye, who works at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital,
Ado-Ekiti, gave this advice in an interview with the News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
He spoke against the backdrop of rising incidents of suicide across the world.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its recent reports said that 800,000 people commit suicide every year across the world.
WHO also said in the report that depression was also the leading
cause of disability worldwide, affecting more than 300 million people,
majority of them women, young people and the elderly.
A Lagos-based medical doctor, Dr Allwell Orji, took his life on Sunday by jumping off the Third Mainland Bridge into the Lagoon. He had ordered his driver to park while on the bridge in order to ease himself.
Ajiboye explained that people who suffered depression had the tendency to become suicidal.
He identified terminal medical condition, poverty, loss of a loved
one or loss of money as other factors that often lead a person to
depression and become suicidal.
The psychologist called for proper monitoring of behaviour of
persons with depression in addition to taking them to see a psychiatrist
who would prescribe anti-depressant drugs and follow up on such
patients.
Ajiboye also advised that harmful objects such as knives should be kept away from people suffering from depression.
He advised that people should be their brother’s keepers,
especially in the religious circles, saying that they should have
welfare packages for people in these times of economic hardship.
“People are passing through a lot of tough times and they may
not want to share their experiences, so religious leaders must learn to
engage people.
“We must call our loved ones regularly to check on their
welfare and see how we can be of assistance, you do not know if that
call will just save a life,’’ the psychologist said.
He also advised people who were faced with some challenges to learn
to share their problems, saying “a problem shared is a problem half
solved”.
Ajiboye explained that unstable mental condition was one of the
factors that could make an individual to be prone to committing suicide.
According to him, suicide is the process of purposely ending one’s life. “The
person has determined already to kill himself which is quite different
from someone who hears a voice telling him to jump into the lagoon or to
strip n*ked.
“We have what we call auditory hallucination where someone
hears a voice saying remove your clothes or jump into the lagoon and the
person obeys, that person may have a psychosis condition.
“Also, the person maybe experiencing visual hallucination,
where only the person sees people or things that want to harm him and to
escape, jump out of a vehicle, or jump in front of a moving vehicle.
“All these must be established before you can arrive at a conclusion,” Ajiboye said.
-NAN
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