SUICIDE IS on the increase among older people, according to charities providing supports to older people. The charities have also reported a rise in the number of people accessing their services.
Dermot Kirwan, of Friends of the Elderly, said yesterday that growing isolation and the closure of traditional meeting places is to blame for the rising number of suicides among older people in rural communities.
The Dublin-based charity has seen a rise in the number of calls it receives relating to isolated elderly people outside the urban area, a growing category which he referred to as “the rural hermit”.
“We’re increasingly getting calls from people all over the country asking if we can help isolated elderly people who are essentially trapped in their own homes,” Mr Kirwan said. The charity was receiving more calls from absent relatives who lived abroad or in parts of the country away from their ageing relatives, he said.
Mr Kirwan said the charity did not have the resources to provide a service outside Dublin but was contacting community groups and parish councils in rural areas to make local services aware of affected older people.
Sociologist and Holy Ghost priest Fr Tony Byrne, of the suicide and bullying awareness organisation Education Awareness, said he feared the phenomenon of suicide which he noticed among the elderly in the US was now taking hold here.
He said older people – made up of those over 40 – were increasingly isolated and worried about losing their independence; about being able to survive financially; and now, increasingly, about their sons and daughters emigrating.
The charities’ comments follow concerns raised by a Kerry-based coroner after an increase in the number of older people taking their own lives. Terence Casey, coroner for south Kerry, said it was commonly perceived that suicide was mainly among the under-20 and under-30 age groups. He said that, since 2005, older age groups made up the majority of suicides in the region.
Seán Moynihan, chief executive of Alone, welcomed the fact that the coroner had highlighted the issue: “There are serious issues that need to be addressed in relation to isolation and loneliness among older people across the country, not only in rural regions but also in urban areas,” he said.
The charity, which provides support to vulnerable older people, received 1,300 requests for help in the last six months of last year.
About 1,000 of these were received between November and December. The charity’s community unit responded to 16 interventions, where an individual’s health or safety was immediately at risk in the last two months of 2010, mainly relating to the cold spell.
“We unfortunately continued to discover some vulnerable older persons in distress, with several of our crisis interventions coming across individuals with no running water, no heat or fuel in their residence, and some incidences where emergency housing was required due to inappropriate shelter,” Mr Moynihan said.
Meanwhile Senior Help Line, a listening service for older people, logged in excess of 10,500 calls throughout Ireland last year.