GILGIT: Gilgit-Baltistan government has decided to undertake reforms to overhaul health, education and police departments to prevent the rising cases of suicide in the region, officials have said.

A steering committee, chaired by GB Chief Secretary Mohiyuddin Ahmad Wani, deliberated upon the “one-year action plan” to prevent suicides and address mental health issues in the region.

The committee has decided to establish forensic laboratories, improve data sharing between health and police departments, reform the curriculum to add mental health and its allied components, appoint medico-legal doctors, crack down on unlicensed weapons and regulate the sales of sedatives, hypnotic drugs and poisons.

The facilities for autopsies will be made available in each district within three days and medico-legal doctors will be notified within two days. Moreover, forensic laboratories in each district will be established by June 2023.

The health department will identify and nominate medico-legal officers from divisional and district headquarter hospitals for training within a week and immediately appoint psychologists. Regular training for lady health workers will be organised while psychologists and psychiatrists will conduct mental health workshops for students and teachers at schools.

Moreover, a compulsory data sharing mechanism has been put in place between district health officers and superintendents of police on suicide cases. The police department will designate officers at district level to coordinate with the health department in suicide cases while the police will be bound to report every attempted suicide to the health department.

The committee also decided to reform the curriculum to incorporate mental health issues while examination results from class 1 to 9 will not be announced but handed over to students in sealed envelopes.

To set up helplines to guide people, the GB government will ask the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to establish toll free numbers.

The committee will issue directives to the concerned departments with fixed timelines to implement the action plan, preferably by May 2023.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2022