‘A Gentle Soul’: Review Hospital lanciata mentre uomo muore per suicidio dopo aver presentato a A&E
https://www.thejournal.ie/university-hospital-galway-review-adam-loughnane-6623155-Feb2025/
di Important_Farmer924
‘A Gentle Soul’: Review Hospital lanciata mentre uomo muore per suicidio dopo aver presentato a A&E
https://www.thejournal.ie/university-hospital-galway-review-adam-loughnane-6623155-Feb2025/
di Important_Farmer924
23 commenti
So so sad.
He did the right thing presenting himself at A&E. I know nothing of how a case like this is handled at triage.
I’m sure they have internal procedures but maybe more awareness is needed on what to do if you’re in crisis like this, for both the public and hospital staff.
Poor fella. Sounded like a lovely guy. Too many lost to suicide in this country. RIP.
Incredibly sad story. Reading it, it seems his brother is not blaming the A&E, just saying that it’s not the right place to send people in Adam’s state of mind.
Which is so true.
Heartbreaking. Another lovely person lost.
Horrendous
Just fuckin horrendous
512 people died from suicide in 2021 and 130 were killed on the roads in the same year. Look at the amount of resources that are out into road safety a fraction of that put into mental health would save far more lives.
That’s a very sad story. Poor guy. His family must be in the midst of it. Lessons can be learned from the hospital side of course, but honestly it sounds like the process was working until the point he left. I do get that A&E is a stressful place so maybe a more quiet place would help, but then again that would be a place where intrusive thoughts might overwhelm you? I think he most needed someone with him and unfortunately that wasn’t possible.
Thoughts with the family
Very sad. Poor lad had a rough life. R.I.P
You cant turn on the telly or radio nowadays without somebody talking about mental health and how we all need to talk and reach out if we feel low. This lad followed the advice and the system let him down.
Not good enough really.
Nothing is going to change until there is accountability.something that can never happen when they close ranks
Irelands response to the acutely suicidal is catastrophically bad. I broke up with someone and they drove out to the woods to kill themselves. Luckily I talked them into giving me their location and the guards got them. But they were just let go about two hours later?
Before this I had also contacted her GP and psychiatrist telling them about the elevation in suicidality. It still got there.
Further context on this tragic story for anyone interested.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BBKKn9qrV/
Oh that just broke my heart. He seemed like such a sweet guy and very much loved. I can’t imagine the pain his family must feel now, such a profound loss.
May Adam rest in peace and may his family’s wish that his suicide be the catalyst for meaningful change in services, come true.
I’m glad some people have had good luck with trying A&E when they’re in crisis.
I was suicidal a few times, but the worst was when I was twenty and I legitimately thought it was the only option. After calming down slightly, I rang a number the mental health services had given me to use in a crisis to be admitted. I’d been engaged with them for years.
Rang the number, lovely lady, told me I’d have to go through the out of hours doctor, (we have no A&E locally) and they should admit me. I went in alone.
I explained everything, what I’d planned to do, showed him all the medications I was on (which I brought with me – how he didn’t consider that I could walk out and overdose on them, I’ll never know). Explained my past with the mental health services, that I was told to come to the out of hours doctor, showed him the overnight bag I’d packed, outright asked to be admitted.
He asked about a wristband I’d forgotten to take off from a concert that week, asked if I had a job, essentially said ‘you’re talking, you’re smiling, you’re okay, life is all about connecting and experiences.’ (I was smiling, riddled with panic and anxiety, I have a nervous habit of it). He said he’d contact my psychiatrist on the next working day. (Spoiler alert: psychiatrist just gave me a sleeping pill prescription, wouldn’t admit me.)
But that doctor in the out of hours service let me walk out of his office in the dead of night, I think around 2am, on the deserted streets, and didn’t even ask if anybody was with me to bring me home. Didn’t ask if I drove there, in case I might drive my car into a ditch or something. Nothing.
I did get home, and obviously lived. That was eight years ago, and I’m still incandescently angry about it.
This is gonna keep happening til mental illness crisises are actually treated seriously.
I saw this man’s sister post on Facebook and it broke my heart completely. The mental health system is a joke in this country. Rest in peace to this poor guy
Nothing to add here other than life can be cruelly unfair. Rest in peace Adam
A tragedy , terribly sad.
Some relevant reading about inpatient bed numbers: [https://www.ihca.ie/news-and-publications/new-report-identifies-shortfall-of-830-acute-mental-health-beds-across-the-country](https://www.ihca.ie/news-and-publications/new-report-identifies-shortfall-of-830-acute-mental-health-beds-across-the-country)
It is not possible to just choose to ‘sign yourself in‘ to any public unit in Ireland. If that happened, we’d be out of beds immediately . Mental health staff in A&E try to triage as best they can. They also waste an incredible amount of time calling around to other units to see if they have fred beds and can take their patients. Out of hours, an A&E is lucky to have both a dedicated psychiatric doctor and nurse on site. Within hours, time is wasted trying to arrange beds or even just find somewhere to see someone. Many A&Es do not have appropriate spaces to undertake an assessment.
Separate mental health assessment units run the risk of physical health difficulties being overlooked and psychiatric units being filled with the delirious and intoxicate who would be better managed in a general setting. But dedicated space for mental health assessments and inpatients is necessary and we have nowhere near enough.
Extremely sad and difficult to hear. I feel so sorry for his family.
The system in A&E is usually that if someone is triaged with an acute psychiatric need it goes to the psych team (in hours) or psych on call (out of hours). Until they can come see the person (as they may be with another patient, dealing with an inpatient, etc), that person in A&E is in a bit of limbo. They haven’t been formally assessed by a psych, so there’s no firm plan in place, and it all comes down to if there’s spots inside the A&E for them to wait, how concerned triage was (which is unfair to ask a triage nurse in 5 minutes to be perfect at triaging suicide risk), and individual hospital protocol.
It creates a model destined to fail someone, at some point, no matter how good or bad the individuals in it are. It’s another symptom of the overall mismanagement and understaffing of the service and it creates real harm that no one is truly held accountable for because the people who make the HSE so inefficient are not the ones in the trenches, getting raked over coals when things inevitably go wrong.
Read the brother’s post. Have to wonder why the DPP and Gardai still pressed the prosecution after the victim passed (due to unrelated causes). Natural justice would have suggested that the prosecution should have been halted at that stage.
Others may disagree on that point I’m sure.
I work with Joe, he is such a nice fella. Devastated for him and his family. They’ve already been through the unthinkable several times over.
Packing the socks is genuinely one of the saddest things i’ve ever heard. The poor man and his family. Shameful lack of mental heath care in Ireland.