SUICIDE GROWS AS GREECE SUFFERS

Psychiatrist Kyriakos Katsadoros estimates suicides in Greece have increased '30 to 40 per cent' since the onset of the financial crisis. Photo: Getty Images

IT WAS only a Skype consultation but it was still charged with emotion. The voice of the man on the computer screen was choked with distress. He often stopped to sob.

He had gone to a Greek island desperate for work. The job had not eventuated and now his partner had left him. He wanted to kill himself. This is a familiar story to psychiatrist Dr Kyriakos Katsadoros, who works for Greece's suicide prevention help line, talking to callers from all over the country. The Athens help line is a barometer of the nation's misery and the pressure reading is high.

Dr Katsadoros says there are no official figures yet, but since the onset of the Greek financial crisis, ''I believe that there's been a 30 to 40 per cent increase in suicide. That estimate is based on the number of phone calls we receive, the reading of newspaper clippings and medical articles.

''Before the crisis, there was at least one suicide a day. Since the crisis, we estimate that there are at least two a day.''

A radio station reported five deaths on one day this week after a caller rang in to tell of yet another. Greeks are beginning to talk about suicide figures the way financiers study bond rates, as a kind of pulse check of national wellbeing. Dr Katsadoros says that before the crisis, three-quarters of help line calls related to emotional problems. Now the help line has four times the number of calls, running at more than 3000 a year. Each suicide reported in the media seems worse than the last. One of the first to grab national headlines was that of left-wing protester Dimitris Christoulas, 77, a retired pharmacist. Distraught at cuts to his pension and new taxes, in May he went to Syntagma Square and shot himself.

''I cannot find any other form of struggle except a dignified end before I have to start scrounging food from the rubbish,'' he said in a note. He added that one day young Greeks would take up arms and hang ''the national traitors'' in Syntagma Square. At least four other people tried to kill themselves over financial troubles in the same week, police say.

Even more distressing than Mr Christoulas' suicide was the case of Antonis Perris, an unemployed musician. He left a note saying, ''I have been taking care of my 90-year-old mother for 20 years now … three or four years ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and recently she has been subject to schizophrenic fits and other health problems. Nursing homes don't accept patients who are such a burden. The problem is that I was not prepared … when the economic crisis hit and I do not have enough money in my account.''

Mr Perris, 60, and his mother held hands and jumped off a balcony in Athens. Both died.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/greeks-count-cost-of-heartbreak-in-tough-times-20120614-20cv2.html#ixzz1xzH4XGnS