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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Aglukkaq knows pain caused by suicide
IN a personal disclosure illustrating the long reach of mental illness, Canada's health minister said Tuesday she has lost "a number of friends" to suicide.
"Our body gets ill from different things, and so does the mind," Leona Aglukkaq told Postmedia News after leading a roundtable discussion on mental health at the 65th World Health Assembly in Geneva.
"We need to look at mental illness like any other illness," she said. "We need to start breaking down those barriers that individuals with mental illness face."
At Tuesday's session, Aglukkaq showcased -- but did not commit funds to -- Canada's new mental-health strategy, a document years in the making that calls for a significant cash boost -- $3 billion to $4 billion over 10 years -- to overhaul a system so fractured and underfunded many community service groups have dropped waiting lists to avoid giving people false hope that eventually their turn will come.
Aglukkaq said it was clear from her discussions with representatives from several countries -- among them, Australia, Chile, Finland, the U.K., Bangladesh, India and the U.S. --that mental health "is a global priority" and one of the biggest challenges is stigma.
"We believe that acknowledging that mental health is a global issue is the first important step in breaking down the stigma around mental health," she said.
Asked if her own life has been touched by mental illness, Aglukkaq, MP for Nunavut, responded, "Yes, absolutely.
"Family-wise, community, friends. I've also lost a number of friends to suicides," she said. "Whether that was associated (with mental illness) or not, one could never really know. But we make assumptions on why we lose people that we care about.
"But certainly, I've seen people suffer from it, whether from postpartum (depression) or whether through illness ... The North is very small."
-- Postmedia News
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 23, 2012 A7
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