Day one on night shifts in the ER. First patient: a 19-year-old girl, attempted suicide number 8 since 2012. Cries because she feels so stupid that she cannot even get killing herself right and the voices have told her this all along.
Having been in an ER room 3 times myself after attempting suicide, seeing this girl hurts me so deeply. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream because I tried for more time that I am usually given to do my entire consult to make her drink the activated charcoal. She refuses. She came here to get eternal sleep, not to get better. And the voices are telling her she can't drink it.
The real doctor comes in after reading my summary on this girl and hearing from the nurses that she wants to go home. He starts with "You are free to go home. We cannot keep you here, because this is not a prison". I want to punch him, he doesn't understand this is the last thing you should say to a girl in her state. We go out to consult with the psychiatrist, I tell him "If you let her go, she will be dead in a hour."
The girl's father tells the doctor he wants to file a complaint against him. Because in the previous times he has been there, never has a doctor ever told his daughter she was free to go home right after a suicide attempt, after so little has been done to try and keep her there. Especially when she is still hearing voices that make her want to die. The doctor gets irritated. Tells the father he has no idea what he has been doing for his daughter. I for a fact know it is very little. Not out of unwillingness, but because a psychiatrist is too lazy to drive over to the hospital when he is on call to assess the patient. He tells the doctor, who fairly recently graduated, that any doctor needs to be capable of assessing the mental competence of a patient. That his consult is not necessary.
Patient starts making a run for the door just after we tell her that we need to admit her after all. She cries and gets frustrated due to the mixed messages. "You told me I could go home". She starts making a run for the door, her own father has to tackle her onto the floor because I am not allowed to physically touch her. Nobody knows what we are and aren't allowed to do with this patient. You'd say this happens more often in an ER.
Such a clusterfuck. And somewhere I blame myself for not starting off my summary with "THIS GIRL WANTS TO KILL HERSELF, WE NEED TO HELP HER." Although I'm not sure if it would have mattered.
