Opinion

Suicide and its Victims

The medical profession has always been a deeply troubling career to have, with many Leaving Cert students hesitating to apply for medical degrees on their CAO, and the help of guidance counsellors to ensure they think very hard about the decision. Anyone who considers the career all have the same longing; to help people. But what happens when this dream fails because some people cannot be helped.

11% of reported suicides in the UK take place in the ward of the suicidal patient, a recent report explained. Almost 2000 deaths by suicide, usually by hanging or deliberately sustaining injuries in their rooms, have had to be witnessed by hospital staff once they are found. This means at least 2000 people who dreamt of ‘helping people’ have been life-changingly devastated when they realize they could not.

When a suicide occurs, people assume the individual was too deep into the darkness to ever see the light, however many do not give a second thought to the person who found the body, in this case, medical staff.

Finding the lifeless body of a person you tried to help emotionally must be a place just as dark as the individual was in. Doctors and nurses are fall familiar with the term ‘l’esprit d’escalier’, a French saying that has no translated equivalent in English, described as the consuming thoughts one has about something they could have done ‘differently.’ During most days, we think to ourselves ‘If I had just gotten up 5 minutes earlier, I would have made that bus or beat the traffic’ or ‘If I hadn’t eaten so much at lunch I would enjoy this dinner more’ etc.

However, what if ‘l’esprit d’escalier’ for hospital staff consists of questions such as ‘If I had prescribed a higher dosage, that person would be alive’ or ‘If I had just checked the ward 5 minutes earlier, he/she would still be alive’?

Taking on the mental responsibility of someone’s death, particularly to their own hands, makes some people feel as guilty as if they had committed murder. Telling someone that suicide is a ‘selfish act’ would not dissuade them, as usually by the time they contemplate suicide they are stripped of all their logic and emotions and can see death as the only way out of the nothingness they feel. If they care about nothing in life, then they will not care who is affected by their death.

The traumatizing effect on those who are affected by the suicide, particularly their primary care-givers in hospital and the person who discovers them, is enough to push these rational and likely intelligent people into committing the act themselves. Conversely, some see it as a genuine insight to the mind of a suicidal person, witness the effects as they ripple through people’s lives, and are so against the idea that they would never be the cause of all the pain suicide brings.

Due to a difference in population figures, the rate of in-patient suicides are far higher in the UK than in Ireland. The definite figures remain elusive, as some toxicology reports and documents stating the cause of death are inconclusive, and there remains a giant proportion of people who may or may not have committed suicide.

 

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