Dont blame staff for GH suicide

CHENNAI: Monday was not the usual dull start to the week at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. It couldn’t afford to be after a 47-year-old father of two hanged himself in a toilet inside the emergency ward there. But going by the reactions of the hospital staff, it was evident that they believed that they simply weren’t to blame. As Geetha, a senior nurse, put it, “How was it our fault in any way? Who would have thought that someone who had been hit by a train could have hanged himself.” Some of the other doctors, working in teaching hospitals in the city share a similar opinion. Dr Barath from the Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital said, “We definitely have lower security in GHs  over private hospitals and it is difficult to stop people from walking into the wards to visit as there is little enforcement.” This did not take away from the fact that the suicide was “unpreventable.” “There will never be CCTV cams or doctors watching patients 24/7 even in the best of private hospitals, so if a person walks into a toilet with bedclothes and hangs himself, it is almost impossible to spot,” he added.As per the findings of an American health commission, factors like family history of suicide, chronic pain, poor prognosis, unemployment and relationship problems can be taken as ‘suicide indicators’ when a patient is admitted itself. Watching them more carefully or keeping them in a restrained environment may curb the incidence of suicides inside hospitals, it suggests. “It has emerged that the patient was suffering from some form of mental illness,” said a senior administrator at RGGGH, “If we had even an inkling, we would have given him a psych evaluation,” he rued.