The community at Halkida, the chief town of the island of Evia, has been shaken by the suicide of two people – a 63-year-old mother and her 27-year-old son. They put an end to their lives at 8 a.m. on Wednesday after three years of battling with the Greek judicial system in an effort to regain their pension benefits. The two people had no other means of income and could not support themselves due to their state of health.

The two leaped from the fifth floor of the flat where they had been living over the last few months on Samartzi Street, Neapolis. The flat had very little furniture and a note that referred to a court decision that notified the woman of the termination of her disability pension. A neighbor notified the police after she saw the bodies lying in a pool of blood. The mother died immediately, but her son was rushed to hospital. “We were desperate,” the son told the police, shortly before dying.

The woman has been described as very proud and kept her problems to herself even though she was getting meals from local charities and soup kitchens.

The change to invalid pensions has seen a number of handicapped people with handicap rates of as much as 80% get their pension cuts as part of the conservative New Democracy government’s cutbacks. Many of these people are left without any other income and minimum job prospects bearing in mind the state of their health. 

A study published in the BMJ Open that examined the trends in monthly suicides in Greece from 1983 to 2012 found that monthly suicide totals changed following 12 pre0selected economic events: eight austerity-related and four prosperity-related. Suicides in men spiked by 13% in October 2008 when the country entered recession and the new round of austerity measures in June 2011 saw suicides spike in both men and women by 36%. The level of suicides are unusual for Greece where, like much of southern Europe, they have been historically low.