Transcript: Yvette Roubideaux, M.D.
Federal agencies and local tribes are collaborating to address high rates of suicide.
- [Robideaux:]
- The epidemic of suicide in Indian communities has been really devastating and—
- [Lindberg:]
- Do you have any idea why it's so strong? It sounds to me like a terrible, horrible thing.
- [Robideaux:]
- It's a horrible thing to happen especially the epidemic in our youth, and it's—you know when someone commits suicide, it means they've lost hope.
- [Lindberg:]
- Yeah.
- [Robideaux:]
- And you hate to see that, but you can understand some of the challenges that our Indian communities are facing: high unemployment, poor economies, you know, drugs and alcohol, and all kinds of problems. And so the young kids for some reason aren't seeing hope as they move forward, and so we realize that not one federal agency can solve this problem, because as much as we can provide behavioral health treatment in the Indian Health Service, there's still things with the schools that need to be done and the economies of the tribes. So if we all can get together with the tribes and at that summit talk about what are the specific needs, maybe we can come up with some better solutions together.