A Reader Reacts to the Abandonment to Agonizing Suicide of Kerrie Wooltorton
SHSers may recall the awful death of Kerrie Wooltorton in the UK, who drank anti freeze as a suicide method and was let die because she had a note pinned to her clothes saying she didn't want to be saved (even though she called the ambulance).
A reader who has asked to remain anonymous sent me a poignant letter off stage, and has kindly permitted me to reproduce it here. I think the comments are important:
By any name, allowing Kerrie to die was abandonment. I am so happy that our correspondent has been able to fight through the darkness and back to the light of day--despite the seeming indifference of her psychiatrist.I was wondering if you have heard any update on the Kerrie Wooltorton story and whether the inquest has made a decision regarding a duty of care owed to people like Kerrie.
Her story touched me because I am a law student who has had 6 suicide attempts in the last 16 months. 5 of those attempts resulted in ICU admission, ventilated and intubated in an induced coma (at various hospitals). The other in the cardiac ward for 10 days. In one particular hospital, I was discharged from ICU without any follow up care. I was told numerous occasions that my actions were my responsibility because I had a personality disorder.
If I had a legitimate mental illness such as depression which would have resulted in me having impaired judgment and affected my capacity to think rationally they would have had a duty of care towards me, I was told by a psychiatrist. I told the same psychiatrist that I was still suicidal and whether it was my responsibility or not, I was still in deep despair and wanted out of the world. He had to then schedule (section) me as "a mentally disordered" person who was at serious harm to herself. I asked him why he was scheduling me since he thought it was my full responsibility, if not only to save his legal arse. He could not answer.
When I was severely ill, I agreed with the doctors because I had a right to "self-determination". I feel quite sick because I could have easily ended up like Kerrie. Like her, I felt hopeless about the future or that anything would improve. I would be interested to know whether the inquest determines it lawful to let people with personality disorders die by their own hand when this could have been prevented.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:00 PM
12 Comments
12 Comments:
My correspondent asked me to note a few amendments to the above quoted letter to me:
"Dear Wesley,
I saw the post and its great. Thank you for allowing me to share my story. While I am still battling the depression I am glad to still be here, thank you, and at least I still have a chance to fight it.
Can I just make one edit and add "on 3 occassions" after "In one particular hospital, I was discharged from ICU without any follow up care". I would also like to mention that in my April Attempt my discharge summary read "IMP: no signs of major depression/doesn't understand the severity of her behaviour" which I thought was a remedial attempt again at protecting themselves from legal liability if I did go on to complete suicide though the "doesn't understand the severity of her behaviour" would surely not help there cause. I don't know if you should add that in.
You also wrote " ...despite the seeming indifference of her psychiatrist". Would it be possible to please change "psychiatrist" (who was an employee of the hospital) to "hospital" or "mental health care system"??? I think that it really is a systematic problem and this young psychiatrist's ethical stance about personality disordered people and suicidal urges is actually endemic (though a major moral delimma) - I suffered the same stigma and indifference as Kerrie did and I live in Australia, though both my case and Kerrie's case are at the worst end of neglect people with BPD are not provided with the same level of care they should be provided with when they are suicidal."
I agree wholeheartedly with this reader. I am also 26 years old and although I have never attempted suicide, have had several bouts of depression in which I felt particularly "desperate" and wanted to die.
Once, in college, because I was so upset and no one could find me, I experienced the embarassing consequence of the police being called. I had just gone to the chapel to pray, and of course it was embarassing, but on the other hand, I appreciate the fact that my friends cared enough to take action, which, in my view, was an act of true love.
I wish that Kerrie's doctors had had enough love to do the same.
I also think that our society has a problem understanding that mental illness does not mean that a person is unable to be productive, have strong moral convictions, and act lovingly towards others, which makes admitting that one has such a disorder a difficult choice to make.
Think of how often evil people are called "psychos" "crazy", etc. Perhaps because our soceity is so eager not to pass moral judgements, these terms have been adopted to describe people for whom the term "evil" accurately applies.
This from a reader: My heart goes out to this young woman with the diagnosis of personality disorder. From what I know as a health care professional, this is a very difficult diagnosis to make and then a very difficult one to treat. Certainly this poor girl appeared to have a deep depression. Contrary to what the aforementioned psychiatrist determined, there are some who would have taken her seriously.
Is this hospital part of a teaching hospital, that is part of a medical school system? One thing that is helpful for psychiatric residents to experience is to rotate through at least one rotation in a community psychiatric practice and hospital. Although not perfect places (there are pressures to curb the bottom line, too), such an experience can open the eyes of the resident or medical student or nursing student to the realities of the lives of patients and their families outside of the system. In other words, it can humanize the patients.
By the way, is the hospital in the second story owned by a religious entity? The name and logo imply that. It so, this is even more outrageous. As part of a religious affiliated hospital, we also are pressured to make sure that every patient has a signed ACD on the chart. Most patients do not understand the nuances or differences in treatments given in an emergency, and most are not admitted for care during the terminal stage of any disease, so they've given little thought to such. Further, most do not have access to a computer as in-patients, nor are they able to consult with experts in these matters. Wanting to be "good patients", the patient usually signs the ACD
That's right. People want to be "good patients" when their health and life depend on their doctors, those in the hospital, etc. They are already at a disadvantage just be virtue of not being at full, at the very least physical, capacity, and they are at a psychological disadvantage by virtue of being in an institution, patient or client of a "professional," etc. even if they themselves are a health care professional or an attorney. They didn't go to the hospital in order to sign anything; they went there to get treatment, and what's on a piece of paper is not foremost in their mind to start with. An elderly and/or infirm person is at a disadvantage even when s/he is not in a hospital or a doctor's office. It is rare, when one signs anything, that one is the only beneficiary of one's signing it, and that there not someone else who benefits from one having signed it in one way or another, and when it was not one's own idea to sign it in the first place, one is already apt to be at a disadvantage.
In fact, considering the physical incapacitation, emotional stress, psychological conditions, etc. under which one is asked to sign things while in hospital, an argument can be made that one signs them under duress. The hospitals know this full well, but sometimes are more concerned with their own interests, legal and otherwise, than with the patient's well-being and legal and civil rights.
Reply @ the Mental Health Professional
Hi, I am the girl who had this happened to. Thank you for your kind words. I just wanted to answer your question; the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney is indeed a major teaching hospital.
Your right, I was in a deep depression. I was actually diagnosed as having bipolar disorder (mixed state) by my private psychiatrist and two professors of psychiatry I later saw out of my own volition as I wanted answers.
I think that when an axis II disorders (such as borderline personality disorder and other personality disorders) are routinely used, it commonly leads to the neglect of a patients axis I disorder such as major depression or bipolar disorder. This then results in a half hearted response and delay in pharmacology treatment and proper care.
The patient is then blamed as being either “personality disordered and untreatable”, not "taking responsibility for their actions" (what does that term mean anyway?) or are “resisting” to get well - thereby the patient is made morally culpable for not getting well while the mental health team is morally exculpated.
To make matters worse, when the "personality disordered" person presents to the ER multiple times with self harm, much to the disgust of ER doctors who generally view them as "attention seekers" and “distracting from” other patients who are actually ill through no fault of their own. The multiple presentations to the ER department are seen as evidence that borderline personality disordered people are written off as “untreatable” – and this is completely false.
It wasn't the anti-freeze that killed Kerrie, it was the seeming indifference of the mental health profession that killed her and almost killed me.
Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, The States Parties to the Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Australia is party to it and I think the UK is too.
I think the right to the highest standard of mental health care is also applicable to people with "personality disorders".
I would like to also give an update - after I stomped my feet al little in demand, in a few weeks I will meet the mental health team at my local hospital to come up with to a management plan set in place in case I deteriorate. Suicide is everyone’s responsibility.
Thank you all who posted for your support and concern.
icu_baby: You deserve it, as does everyone who seeks medical care. What I've noticed about teaching hospitals is that they seem to have the attitude that the institution exists for the sake of those they are training, who get entirely too full of themselves, rather than for that of the patients, and act as if they know everything while committing error after error with an attitude of entitlement and "superior knowledge" when in fact they often don't even know, or care, what they are doing. They are supposed to be teaching those in training there to be DOCTORS, and that the patient, and the saving of lives, matters above all else. But instead of creating an environment filled with constant reminders about the Hippocratic Oath and regarding patients as precious and to be respected, and as medical consumers, with an attitude analogous to "the customer is always right," they act as if they are right and the patient is wrong, and as if the patient should be grateful to be the object of their incomplete knowledge, callousness, and mistreatment. That type of training environment is part of the reason why medicine is in the state it is in today. Good for you for stomping your feet. It sounds as if you are going to be around for quite a while, and do a lot of good, and we're lucky that you are.
icu_baby: Thanks for letting me print your story. You are right, "Suicide is everyone's responsibility." That so many think it isn't demonstrates the abandoning ethic of the culture of death.
Wesley: That's because no one wants to be responsible for anything, including their own life -- or death. They even want help with the latter. This is what happens in a society based on credit, mortgages, lottery tickets, social services....everybody's just entitled, and no one can even keep themselves together, or even knows how, let alone caring about anyone else. But if suicide were not everybody's business, there would not be that queasy feeling when someone commits it.
being quite close to the family i can say that the coroners inquest is STILL ongoing, despite one tempory cancellation which neither nhs nor coroner seemed to be bothered about contacting family or their solicitor,and extensive delay due to nhs statements not being passed on to families solicitors.So far it seems kerrie wasnt fully aided due to an interpretation of a nhs policy(which took 6 months to get)that basically relates to a woman who badly cut herself by accident and refused a blood transfusion due to religious belief. Obviously there is a lot more to the case but lets face it most details will be suppressesed due to no-one being allowed to "advise" people on "assisted" suicide in the UK
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home