SA's police officers are suffering extreme suicide rate, warns Society of Psychiatrists

This Mental Health Month, the suicide rate of first responders, including police officers, is under the spotlight, with reports of 54 SAPS members having taken their lives in the 2024/2025 financial year.

The South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP) says it is woefully inadequate that only 621 health and wellness employees serve over 180,000 police personnel.

Society member, Dr Gagu Matsebula, said this was far from the stated ideal of a mental health practitioner for every 500 police workers.

"Organisational culture and the lack of support from management are sources of clinical concern to us as psychiatrists. We are seeing the effect of that as evidenced by the number of SAPS members who have died by suicide," said Matsebula.

He said police need to be able to share their feelings because of the continued exposure to high-trauma incidents. Other factors that impact their mental health include insufficient pay, inadequate resources, long working hours, shift work and irregular sleep patterns.

"We recommend that rosters for first responders have predictable work schedules, and there must be a predictable time for rest as well. And these shifts should be set in a manner where the person can rotate between low and high trauma settings,"suggested Matsebula.

He added that there must be training and awareness about mental health, especially for managers and the first responders themselves.

"And there must be confidential and independent pathways that can be used to refer such individuals to relevant assistance."

Matsebula also advised police officers to try to put into place some form of support, even among their colleagues, that they feel comfortable talking with or speaking to friends about what they've seen.

"Talking about feelings does not imply that an individual is weak; the opposite is true. It actually means that person is a strong individual, that person is a resilient individual if they're able to talk about what their emotional state is looking like. It is really important to try to come up with healthy coping skills."

For the full discussion between CapeTalk's Clarence Ford and Matsebula, use the audio player below: