Manitoba post-secondary schools should track student suicides, experts say, but most don't

WARNING: This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, see the end of this story for resources.

Inside Klinic Community Health's Sherbrook Street location in Winnipeg, counsellors answer calls from people in crisis and lend an ear to those experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Post-secondary students and youth call Klinic's suicide prevention and support line about cost of living and housing concerns, or feelings of despair and isolation, said Richelle Ready, Klinic's crisis support services manager.

"It doesn't surprise me that folks such as post-secondary students are struggling right now. The human experience is really challenging," she told CBC in a Wednesday interview.

Collecting data is important for finding out what kind of help people need and where, and for getting funding to shore up those supports, Ready said.

She thinks post-secondary institutions tracking deaths by suicide and suicide attempts among students would improve the schools' services.

But an exclusive CBC News investigation has found that more than 70 per cent of Canadian universities do not track suicides or attempted suicides among students.

CBC News asked seven of Manitoba's largest colleges and universities whether or not they do that sort of tracking.

Two said they track student deaths by suicide internally. Four said they did not track, and one school said it tracks on-campus medical events.

Suicide has been the second-leading cause of death among youth aged 15 to 24 since at least 2000, according to Statistics Canada. More than 2,500 people in that age group died by suicide between 2018 and 2022.

Last year, post-secondary students and youth accounted for a higher proportion of callers to Klinic's suicide prevention and support line than to the health centre's general crisis line, Ready said.

Klinic's suicide prevention and support line is anonymous and available all hours of the day. Although people don't have to disclose information if they don't want to, Klinic keeps track of how many calls it gets and what topics people call about, Ready said. 

This informs how Klinic continues to offer help — for example, giving specific training to staff who can then help clients better, Ready said.

Collecting data on deaths by suicide and suicide attempts can help post-secondary institutions deliver better services for students, and may help develop tools that could potentially predict risk of suicide, said Zachary Kaminsky, an associate professor of University of Ottawa's faculty of medicine.