Editorial-September 10, 2013
The Jathika Hela Urumaya has pulled out of the Parliamentary Select Committee to Recommend and Report on Political and Constitutional Measures to Empower the People of Sri Lanka to Live as One Nation, claiming that no conclusions have been reached prior to the forthcoming provincial council elections. Minister Wimal Weerawansa’s National Freedom Front has also threatened to follow suit as it thinks the PSC has not yet got down to brass tacks. With the Opposition parties refusing to participate and the government allies voting with their feet, the PSC will have work cut out in accomplishing its mission.
There is a misconception that Sri Lanka is beset with only a single national issue—ethnic disharmony. It is, no doubt, a vexed problem of gargantuan proportions and a solution must be found if bloody conflicts are to be prevented for the sake of future generations. But, we should not lose sight of other problems.
We reported quoting a senior doctor yesterday that suicide had accounted for more deaths than the war. About 106,000 Sri Lankans had committed suicide from 1985 to 2000, our report said. But, mental health is generally neglected as could be seen from the severe dearth of psychiatrists in the public health sector. There are only 50 of them for a population of 22 million. Most of them are said to be in Colombo and Kandy. There is also a shortage of psychologists and counsellors.
Only a few schools offer counselling to students though they are in the most suicide-prone age group (15-35). There have been instances where schoolchildren committed suicide out of desperation as they were without anyone to turn to. The education authorities should give serious thought to training as many teachers as possible in counselling so that help will be readily available to children at school.
The government has embarked on an ambitious project to rid the country of dangerous drugs and apparently made some progress in its battle. But, there are many other things children should be protected against. Among them are harmful fast foods and chronic stress which has reduced children to nervous wrecks. Diabetes is prevalent among schoolchildren who are also stressed out due to tough examinations where they are tested not for what they know but for what they don’t. No wonder they are suicidal! It is time the education and health authorities who render a commendable service by conducting school health programmes started testing students’ stress levels as well because they are associated with serious illnesses.
Road accidents, too, have caused the country to bleed just like the war which is thankfully a thing of the past. During the last three decades over 40,000 people have been killed and 68,440 others seriously injured in 1,120,848 traffic accidents. In 2011, 225 schoolchildren were killed in road mishaps and 4,100 others critically injured. In 2010, about 223 children were killed and 3,400 others sustained serious injuries. Regrettably, precious little is being done to reverse this dangerous trend. Dengue now destroys a fewer number of lives, but its prevention receives more attention than the efforts to eliminate causes of road deaths.
Many such problems exist but, strangely, successive governments have chosen to ignore them while pretending to grapple with the so-called national question. It is high time lawmakers addressed them, especially suicide and road accidents, without wasting any more time.
