Accidents
Traffic accidents
Accidental poisoning
359
...
(376)
9
(24)
Accidental falls from heights
119
(138)
Other accidents
Suicides
437
...
(512)
924
(1,050)
By poisoning
By jumps from heights
59
(114)
139
(193)
By other known means
190
...
(233)
388
(540)
1,312
(1,590)
As will be seen, deaths by accident and suicide decreased by 126 and 152 respectively. The number of deaths by accident or suicide over the past five years have been as follows:
Accident
Suicide
Male
Female Total Male
Female
Total
1967
560
302
862
239
149
388
1968
568
302
870
247
208
455
1969
347
160
507
180
150
330
•
1970
710
338
1,050**
310
230
540
1971
632
292
924
217
171
388
* including 2 deaths of persons of unknown sex.
The apparently wide fluctuations in 1969 and 1970 call for a word of ex- planation. The reason is that prior to 1969 deaths by accident or suicide were registered upon the issue of a mortuary return. A consequence of this practice was that in some cases deaths were registered before the coroner had obtained death reports, and this sometimes led to the necessity, after the death report had been obtained, of altering the cause of death in the death register. This was not a very satisfactory situation, and in 1969 the practice was changed so that only those deaths were registered where the coroner had either completed his findings or had indicated that he was not calling for a death report. The result of this change in practice was that the number of deaths registered in 1969 was much lower than it would have been had the previous practice been followed. This in turn resulted in a much larger registration figure for accident and suicide deaths in 1970, since it included a large number of cases held over from 1969 pending the coroner's decision.
190. Full statistics of the causes of the deaths registered may be found in Tables 12 and 49 of the Annual Departmental Report of the Director of Medical and Health Services.
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