At least 1 in 7are depressed

Over 10k adults in the city are being treated for the condition.

With 11,918 Londonderry sufferers this accounts for seven per cent of the 182,525 people across Northern Ireland who are officially depressed.

Only in West Belfast (13,123), North Belfast (12,074) and Newry and Armagh (12,561) are there more sufferers.

Health Minister Edwin Poots revealed the crippling levels of depression in response to a question at the Stormont Assembly.

He said that the total number of GP registered patients with a current diagnosis of depression is recorded under the Quality & Outcomes Framework (QOF) of the General Medical Services contract.

But the figures only include patients aged 18 and over and exclude women with postnatal depression, suggesting the problem of depression in the city is actually much higher.

The startling revelation follows a Sentinel report last month that showed emergency paramedics were rushed to 1,018 cases of people trying to kill themselves, overdosing on drink or drugs or engaging in such abnormal psychiatric behaviour that 999 had to be called in Londonderry UK City of Culture in 2011/12.

A leading suicide prevention worker in the city said the new data, whilst an apparent spike on previous years, was sadly not surprising.

Ambulances attended an unbelievable 1,018 call-outs in 2011 in the city where the chief complaint was either ‘overdose/poisoning (ingestion)’ or ‘psychiatric/abnormal behaviour/suicide attempts.’

Assuming no-one under the age of 10 tried to kill themselves in 2011 the per capita figure was one episode for every 92 people living in Londonderry.