Dr. Eric Kelleher:

This is the complexity of the challenge. In the first six months, the rates are higher and then they appear to dissipate. They appear to then downward trend. Enabling this type of legislation enables it for everybody, so there may well be a select group of patients who lived autonomous lives and wish to make this choice and are free of mental illness. We all acknowledge that. However, changing the law changes it for all the people who experience suicidality in the context of a new diagnosis. It is hard if, as a society, we reframe how we view suicidal behaviour. In practice, these behaviours highlight those with chronic physical illnesses as being a priority group, as Dr. McHale and the National Office of Suicide Prevention, NOSP, highlighted. What happens to that in the context of a legal change? Do we start to normalise these types of experiences for people and expose more people to vulnerability? That is the great challenge here.