Likelihood of Success

Overlawyered asks, is it really possible — or, practical — to design a system that makes it impossible for suicidal psychiatric patients to kill themselves?

Most patients who are admitted to inpatient psychiatric facilities these days arrive there because they are either suicidal or psychotic. Short stays are the norm, and thus hospital staff are given the difficult task of caring for numerous patients who are very sick. Indeed, caring for the very sick is what hospitals do; but assuring safety for patients who are actively intent on hurting or killing themselves has always been a difficult task. Patients who are chronically suicidal often spend a great deal of time contemplating the method of their demise and it takes very little time to accomplish this goal once the final decision is made.

No psychiatric system, no matter how elaborately conceived, can assure us that a desperately depressed patient driven by suicidal thoughts will not harm himself. By seeking to hold someone responsible for the unfortunate events like those that occurred with Ms. Ferrell, our legal system drives the health care industry to spend inordinate amounts of monies to reduce patient risk to as close as zero as possible. Such pursuits invariably raise costs and limit services within our health care system which operates within a finite fiscal reality of uneven private and Medicaid reimbursements.

Ultimately, someone who wants out badly enough will find a way.