Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

21 October 2025

1-minute read

Each week on average, one member of the South African Police Services dies by suicide, highlighting the mental health toll on these first responders. 2024 showed 54 members of SAPS taking their own lives, a rising trend among the country’s overworked and underpaid police officers.

According to Dr. Melane van Zyl, a member of the South African Society of Psychiatrists, it is difficult to find data or do research on the causes of suicide “especially in retrospect” from the data on hand and the doctors’ own experience. However, she states that it is evident that the police officer’s distress comes from their work situation, “the trauma that they’re exposed to,” alongside fatigue that is a result of having to serve people with inadequate resources and support for themselves, and the inability to detect when they themselves are experiencing mental health issues.

While SAPS is “really trying hard to support their members” through in-house structures and government policy involvement, these services are under-resourced, insufficient and inadequate, with a mere 621 health and wellness workers having to provide care for 187 000 SAPS personnel members. “It’s really quite a big dilemma,” says Dr. van Zyl, making it “just impossible to get to everybody.”

She suggests putting very clear and standardised procedures into place to deal with the problem. All those in a first-responder capacity need to be educated on how to recognise problematic issues within themselves like burnout and post-traumatic stress, as well as how to protect themselves from possible mental health issues that could lead to suicide, so as to “instigate their own wellness.”

Listen to the full interview with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat and Dr. Melane van Zyl.