In 2015 the Ministry of Health of the Respublic of Lithuania received Rotary International District 1462 conference resolution “For the more active and wide-ranging actions to solve the problem of suicides in Lithuania”.
Rotarians of Lithuania proposed to the state institutions and society to identify the problem of suicides as one of the most important national health and social problems, the solution of which needed to involve state resources and public forces. It was stressed that Lithuanian Rotary community will act to put local communities at the forefront of suicide prevention and use its leadership, competence, social skills, international relations and resources to better address the problem of suicides.
Strengthening mental health is one of the priorities of the Goverment of the Republic of Lithuania. Special attention is given to the reduction of the number of suicides in the state. The upcoming anticipated step is the creation of an early suicide identification and complex assistance system. In the Plan of the implementation of the Goverment’s program there is Work No. 1.4.3 “Development of the system for early possible suicides recognition and providing complex assistence”.
The two activities could be mentioned:
5. training of specialists, who are in contact with suicide risk persons, to identify and organize necessary assistance;
6 optimizing the activities of mental health centers, ensuring better availability of primary mental health care services by attracting more specialists (psychotherapists, psychologysts).
Therefore, the proposed activities of the project “Suicide prevention model and its application in the municipalities of Lithuania” fully align with the program of the Goverment and are in compliance with above mentioned activities.
The involvement of the 11 municipalities (Marijampolė, Vilkaviškis district, Šilutė district, Tauragė district, Akmenė district, Kupiškis district, Pasvalys district, Anykščiai district, Ukmergė district, Panevėžys district, Druskininkai) will help to achieve the raised goal in the Goverment’s program – to decrease moratlity due to suicides (mortality rate per 100 thousand inhabitants) from 30.8 in the year 2015 to 19.5 in the year 2020.