Giving Up on Suicidals Is Never an Option

Letter to Romans: An episode of The Resident treated “hopelessly” suicidal patients & triggered memories of the days in which their institutionalization was common, until modern medicine, psychiatry & law opted for emphasizing “least restrictive options” to help them survive. How's that working out?  

Latest national data suggests suicides in the U.S. have climbed from about 10 per 100K in 1960 to about 13 or 14 per 100K or in the 30% increase range today. Time to revive the old school approach without its demons? Of course, the pre-70s old school way of treating mental illness & protecting those worst-case folks from harming themselves or others was largely reformed because of identified abuses & limited resources, especially when institutionalization morphed into a sadistic long-term ordeal in some cases. It was widely thought advancements in meds & psychiatry would make the more draconian safety methods obsolete.

Speaking with my lawyer robes now, I wonder: Could it be it’s time the experimentation’s impact itself needs to be revisited, seen in a new, clearer light? That is, still with an advanced eye toward redoubling the humanitarian & human rights efforts to take the “least restrictive option” where it always makes sense. And, unlike in the good/bad old days, so long as all the players (patients, families, docs, psychiatrists, clergy, law enforcement, court system) are properly coordinated with a renewed “never say die” attitude? Then again, what if the tool of short-term institutionalization were also newly (re)conceived, streamlined, properly funded & implemented as skillfully as modern knowledge supposedly can allow? To give everyone involved blessed time to do what needs to be done to save a life? To give the patients, families and professionals to get treatment options right … and to give God a better chance to work His wonders … so that “giving up” is truly never an option?

Davd Soul