“..Tariana Turia is questioning whether the Government has an effective response to the number of 32 suspected suicides in Northland this year – the latest tragedy involving a 10-year-old boy.
“Their communities are reeling and I’m just not sure that the Government knows how to help” – the Maori Party co-leader and Associate Health Minister said.
“It is shocking … It’s a measurement of how bad things are when your kids lose all hope about living.”
She said she attended a hui in Northland last week after the death of a 10-year-old.
“I wept. I thought, my God, what happens in a 10-year-old’s life that they have no desire to live.”
The issue of suicide particularly by disaffected and isolated Maori youth was raised several times at the Maori Party conference in the Wairarapa -
- including by a local woman who said there had been 14 suicides in the area over the past 10 months -
- most in the 15 to 20 age group..”
(cot..)
go to source/story>>>
Turia ‘shocked’ at rise of Northland suicides – National – NZ Herald News.
