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6 Comments »

1. 

   Update from RNZ

   Emergency services were called to King Edward Street just before 11am this morning.

   A member of the public tried to extinguish the flames, but the man died at the scene.

   Police said the man’s death was not suspicious.

   A formal identification process is under way and police are working to notify the man’s next of kin.

   Comment by Downunder — Sun 6th May 2018 @ 5:21 pm

2. 

   It may not be suspicious in the eyes of the law but anything a little out of the ordinary usually gets
   pounced on by the media.

   And morbid curiosity is not considered polite but that doesn’t appear to be doing much for men in the social climate of individual privacy and suicide secrecy.

   Comment by Downunder — Sat 2nd June 2018 @ 7:44 am

3. 

   Suicide as a death was once upon a time a criminal investigation.

   Probably the fastest investigation ever was when Larnoch shot himself in Parliament which satisfied the coronary inquiry in sufficient time to have him buried within the week.

   But these days with no police investigation … just the Coroner musing their way through the details at their leisure probably isn’t helping discover the causes leading up to the death.

   Perhaps men are just a convenience in life these days.

   Comment by Evan Myers — Sat 2nd June 2018 @ 3:09 pm

4. 

   Suicide and secrecy are words that just don’t sound right when put together.
   We accept or even expect publication by the coroner on publishing some collated information on suicides.
   Individual cases and publishing of thier details becomes problematic as there are often innocent parties, disturbing content, unfounded accusations including those made by themselves, failures by potentially liable entities, conflict, crime, violence, and medical issues that the individual had no control over.

   Maybe the question is whether or not we have the balance right between complete openness and complete suppression.
   I for one don’t want complete openness. Having lived pretty much all my life with an illness that makes suicidal thoughts compulsory I sure as hell don’t like the consequences to the people who do care about me, or rely on me etc. One of the things that helped prevent the thoughts becoming reality is those external human relationships. Suicidal thoughts are not something that can be just switched off so anything to help the logical parts of the brain have enough reasons to overcome whatever the emotional parts of the brain is doing the better things get. I hope however that we behave in a way so that the innocent parties are not affected. I don’t care about how they did it. I think the regional data and racial data is ok as it helps to identify groups with higher rates or even unusually low rates. There is always one subject that seems to be taboo or even banned from the vocabulary in the media and in the coroners reports. Why?

   I think Sid ran out of those logical things to keep going.
   I can’t say I know that’s true because I haven’t heard the official Why.

   Why isn’t Why the most important thing in reporting a suicide.
   After all isn’t Why equivalent to cause?

   How do you lower suicide rates?
   By treating the symptoms when they appear?
   That’s like having AIDS in the community and the Prime Minister saying to the Minister of Health, “look there’s something bad in the community but they seem to be generally undersirable people, viruses are impossible to stop as well, so put a management plan together please” then to the Minister of Justice, “hey, we getting all these dead people from unexplained circumstance. We can tell it’s affecting undersirable males, it’s a political football that will ruin our election chances if the public finds out why, so tick all the boxes but release as little information as you can”

   Why did this person (undisclosed name, location, age, race, gender) suicide?

   Comment by DJ Ward — Sat 2nd June 2018 @ 3:50 pm

5. 

   Why isn’t Why the most important thing in reporting a suicide.
   After all isn’t Why equivalent to cause?

   That’s a battle I’ve been involved with since I joined SFST 20 years ago.

   Then in UOF we busted the secrecy of the Clark regime when we ‘obtained’ the real figures of male suicide from the bowels of the health department.

   Even then it took years and an increasing number of isolated groups building up before the state resistance turned to political concern.

   You’re not alone in wondering why.

   Comment by Downunder — Sun 3rd June 2018 @ 2:10 am

6. 

   The death of a NZ man in Australia was one odd example that fell outside the media rules.

   There was more worthwhile information about that case than we’ve seen from the Coroner.

   Recently I read a news article about a Coroner berating police for not giving a woman who later killed herself enough support.

   The double standard once I saw that was by all accounts representative of the area of bias.

   Comment by Evan Myers — Mon 4th June 2018 @ 12:45 pm

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