A final year student of Techiman Senior High School (SHS) has reportedly committed suicide after he was jilted by his girlfriend.

Sources close to the deceased student say his girlfriend, a first-year SHS student, terminated their relationship following advice from her parents.

According to friends close to the two students, the girl's parent disapproved of their amorous relationship.

The deceased allegedly drunk a poisonous substance and was first rushed to the Opoku Agyeman Hospital.

After failing to make progress to stabilise him, doctors at the Opoku Agyeman Hospital referred the heartbroken student to Holy Family hospital on Thursday where he died.

A friend of the deceased who spoke to Joy News said he is not surprised as he had threatened to take his life if he was ditched.

"The girl's mother told her that if she doesn't end the relationship she [mother] will not take care of her. So the girl told the guy that her parents are asking her to stop the relationship so they should break up. So the guy said if she leaves him, he will take a medicine and kill himself," the friend narrated to Joy News.

Joy News is following the story for details, however, last year, a 30-year-old man also took his life over a misunderstanding with his girlfriend.  

The deceased Kweku Mensah is reported to have committed suicide in connection with an unresolved issue between him and his girlfriend with whom he has two children.  

Family sources said Mensah’s girlfriend had threatened to curtail the relationship due to a misunderstanding.  

The sources said the deceased, unable to withstand the loss of his girlfriend, decided to take his life.

Suicide causes

Media reports on suicide are becoming alarming.

A report by the Daily Graphic newspaper in 2015,  said 1,500 suicide cases are reported annually and this is caused by depression. This figure was attributed to Dr. Akwasi Osei, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Mental Health Authority (MHA).

 “In every single reported case of suicide there were four unreported cases and this brings the number of unreported cases to about 6,000 annually,” the newspaper quoted Dr Osei in that report.

Breakdown of social integration

A famous explanation given for the incidence of suicide is the breakdown of social integration.

Although suicide is a public health problem, Emile Durkheim, a French Sociologist stated in his groundbreaking study that suicide occurs as a consequence of the decrease in social integration.

Durkheim categorised suicide in four ways: anomic, altruistic, egoistic and fatalistic.

In each of the categorisations, Durkheim views the causal factor of suicide to be the breakdown in the relationship between an individual and his immediate environment and vice versa.