A staggering 650 people have committed suicide on Crete over the last 15 years, most of them middle-aged men, according to statistics presented at a workshop organised by the regional department of General Health and Social Welfare on Friday in Heraklion, the island’s capital.
The year 2000 was the worst on record with 61 people taking their own lives, ekriti.gr (link in Greek) reported.
While middle-aged men are the most vulnerable group, “suicide among women and young people is decreasing,”said Alexandros Vgontzos, a neurosurgeon who heads the Pagni psychiatric clinic on the island.
Vgontzos said that no link has been established between Greece’s financial crisis and the high suicide rate, but he stressed the need for improved psychiatric facilities, especially on eastern Crete where most of the incidents have been recorded.
The family unit, the workplace and the state can go a long way to help people with suicidal tendencies, but diminishing welfare is not helping matters, said Giorgos Nikolakakis, a sociology professor at the University of Crete, who added that suicide is a social and political phenomenon.
The purpose of the workshop was to seek solutions to help diagnose and prevent suicide, to offer support to people experiencing the consequences of the financial crisis and to raise awareness among families and the local societies of the available state-run services
Crete is the most populous island in Greece with a population of more than 600,000 people.