So has anyone noticed any evidence of the health ministry’s increased “suicide prevention program?” I know that some subways have doors which block jumpers like in my cell phone pic at right. As a suicidal person myself, though, I’d just go to a subway station without the doors if I were dead set on the track jumping method.
Among developed nations, South Korea and Japan have the world’s highest suicide rates, or 24.8 and 24 per every 100,000 people respectively, followed by Belgium at 21.3 and Finland at 20.35. The United States stands at 11.1.
….
With South Korea about to enter its first recession in a decade and exports suffering their biggest ever drop, the country’s health ministry has launched a suicide prevention program.
In Asia, suicides rise due to financial crisis – Asia-Pacific – msnbc.com
26/02/2009 at 9:20 am Permalink
I believe they’re in the process of installing them in all the subway stations ~ they started working on them in Seoul Station two years ago as part of some other upgrades they were making at the time. Stations without doors often play “suicide prevention music” as another preventative measure, and the financial as well as emotional consequences to the city make this a pretty serious issue for officials to resolve. Gusts of Popular Feeling had an excellent post up about the matter: http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2007/06/subway-suicide-figures.html
and the AP had an article about the problem, and the preventative measures all the way back in 2004: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-06-18-skorea-suicide_x.htm
26/02/2009 at 11:37 am Permalink
What signs of suicide prevention should I be looking out for?
26/02/2009 at 12:23 pm Permalink
“As a suicidal person myself”
you don’t mean that do you Mark?
26/02/2009 at 12:42 pm Permalink
When the government made it illegal to walk/cross across the various Han River bridges to curtail the suicides there, the jumpers moved to the subways. Now that the subways will not be an option by the end of the year, the jumpers will just go off a tall building.
If someone is determined to die, they’ll find a way.
26/02/2009 at 1:38 pm Permalink
When I lived in San Francisco it was a huge issue dealing with the Golden Gate Bridge and that it was a hot spot for suicides. With a huge budget they have spent years trying to figure out a barrier that won’t hurt the look of the bridge or infringe upon the physics of the bridge. I think they finally got something installed…not sure…though.
You can’t stop someone if they are determined to end their life. We all know what Korea needs to tackle this program and that is social outreach. Building barriers is just one step but it is not the solution.
I’m sure there are hotlines for these people to call. But without a place for these people to go to talk about their issues (therapy) than the problem will persist. Again it is the roots of this culture that need digging out to make issues like these resolved.
My heart goes out to those who are suffering here and feel suicidal. Certainly I think we all have had thoughts of this one time in our life over something that has happened to us. But we never carry it out. I hope more is done psychologically rather than physically (building walls) to help these people.
26/02/2009 at 4:11 pm Permalink
I agree with Joy, I’d like to see more done psychologically for suicidal people in Korea.
I thought it was rather symbolic, putting up walls to prevent suicide, rather than breaking down walls (ie. the stigma and ignorance of mental health problems in Korea) via education or outreach.
26/02/2009 at 8:54 pm Permalink
Well, James, it is one of the reasons I am institutionalized at the moment….
26/02/2009 at 11:58 pm Permalink
The walls have a practical purpose beyond the prevention of suicide; its probably significantly increased the general safety of the stations that have them. You can’t drop something on the tracks or fall yourself. And let’s not read too much into the idea of a wall ~ I certainly think it’s a more practical and useful solution than playing Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Send in the Clowns”
27/02/2009 at 8:51 am Permalink
Aren’t they also supposed to stop the carbon-monoxide-filled, possibly asbestos-laced air from the tunnels from blackening my sweet, soft, pink lungs?
27/02/2009 at 10:38 am Permalink
The walls in the subways are functional on so many levels. Certainly could be useful in other subway cities such as New York.
I find it fun when you are at a station and they are in stages of building the walls. Each time you go through you get to see a different stage they are on.
28/02/2009 at 11:45 pm Permalink
The fact that they only have the doors on line 1 at Seoul Station and not on Line 4 kind of defies the point…
01/03/2009 at 8:44 am Permalink
Is there anything that I can do to help you or your family?
I lost my wife and 5 year old daughter at the 26 year mark in the Navy.
My dad spent 26 years in the Army after graduating USMA in 57.
His father went the distance after graduating USMA in 32.
Just asking.
01/03/2009 at 12:14 pm Permalink
Well, the fact of the matter is that government and media have decoupled the rash of suicides among celebrities (”We need more absolute and total control over the Internet!”) and the rash of suicides among the rest of the country (”Let’s blockade the current method, rather than treat the underlying causes”).
It’s difficult for a society to get over its taboos, and mental health care of any kind is very taboo, still. Psychiatrists prescribe medications and then sell them to you, because buying psychoactive meds in public here is about as likely as ordering sex toys to one’s own workplace when one knows they won’t be delivered in a paper wrapper.
(Not that the latter case is realistic. They’ve mastered discretion too, from what I hear.)
But it’s much more difficult to overcome mental health taboos when a society isn’t really trying. There hasn’t been any big campaign for suicide awareness or suicide prevention as far as I know. Counselors exist but many are not cheap. Psychiatry is not a valued medical field to get into here, and the facilities for those having, say, a nervous breakdown are, well, from second-hand testimony I can say that some of them are atrocious.
The sad thing is that all the energy that could have been harnessed every time a pop star committed suicide was directed (by the media and by congresscritters alike) towards increased internet controls — which do nothing to deal with the suicide epidemic, but just facilitate increasingly onerous controls on political speech here. All that energy seems to have dissipated. It’s tragic, because it’s a double sin: a transgression against those whose lives might have been saved (and their families’ lives who would not be scarred as they are), *and* a crime against political freedoms too. It’s quite horrifying, really.
02/03/2009 at 12:47 am Permalink
Not all the subways lines are owned and operated by the same organizations, nor would it make sense to have all subway lines under renovation at the same time. It takes some pretty extensive renovation to add them. And there’s more than just at Seoul Station – about 89 stations currently have them, 151 are currently renovating to accommodate them (line 9 will open with all stations fitted with the doors), and supposedly this will all be finished before the end of the year, excepting Cheongnyangni Station, which is being renovated in 2010.
As for line one, I get on and off at Dongmyo St. all the time, and there are doors there ~ as there are on line 4’s Myeongdong St., for example.
02/03/2009 at 2:28 am Permalink
There was a woman who died when she became trapped between the subway and sliding doors last October at Hwagok Station, or so this article tells us. Actually, according to a student I taught at the time, it was a suicide. The reason he would know is that he is a station engineer, repairing systems in 12 stations (Omokyo – Banghwa on Line 5), and part of that job includes reviewing CCTV footage when suicides occur – not an enviable job. He told me more than 20 suicides had occurred within those 12 stations (I’m not sure of the time frame), including this one at Gaehwasan Station last August, where a divorced mother jumped in front of a train with her 5 year old daughter and 11 year old son. Only the son survived.
02/03/2009 at 3:35 am Permalink
Oh, and a September 2008 Korea Times article looks at the effects of suicides on subway train drivers.