Lady commits suicide in the Eastern Region

A lady believed to be a resident of Ekye-Amanfrom at Afram Plains in the Eastern Region has allegedly committed suicide.

Her body was found hanging from a reservoir near the Ekye Presbyterian Health Centre on Monday, March 13.

The reasons why the lady, identified as Leticia Amartey, committed suicide are unknown.

Recently, two female students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (KNUST) and the University of Ghana (UG), committed suicide.

While the KNUST lady was a first year students who hanged herself with a rope in her room, the UG student who jumped from a storey building to her death was in her final year.

A man in his 30s was reported have committed suicide at Achimota in Accra while another 16-year-old Junior High School (JHS) student in the Eastern Region hanged herself in her parents’ kitchen.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority (MHA), Dr Akwasi Osei, has admonished government to scrap attempted suicide from the list of criminal offences on the country’s books.

According to him, “attempted suicide is not a criminal issue, neither is it a moral issue or spiritual problem”.

This was contained in a press release in the aftermath of a list of suicides recorded in the country in recent times.

Dr Osei, in the statement issued on Monday, March 13, explained that suicide “is simply a cry for help to resolve psychosocial issues and, therefore, more appropriately is a medical problem. Decriminalising attempted suicide will give the youth and people who have suicidal thoughts an opportunity to talk about what they feel without having to look over their shoulders or having to think they will be prosecuted should they talk about their suicide tendencies”.

Dr Osei, who feels society has failed the youth, further charged parliament to expedite action in passing the legislative instrument to the Mental Health Act, 2012 (Act 846) to enable the Mental Health Authority to institute its programmes of massive public education and mental health promotion.