Of course early discharge increases suicide rate

Kathleen Lynch doesn’t get it. If the psychiatric nurses and psychiatrists say that “early discharge” from hospital has a bearing on the increase in suicide rates, then they are correct.

The ‘evidence’ Lynch seeks is in the living who have overcome the urge to “end it all”. Because they were treated well, they survived. Ask them. Many people will say they contemplated suicide. Hiding behind the dead is not just cynical, it is irreverent. I thank the Lord that we have organisations such as Pieta House, or the death rate would be far more. Ask the experts; publish their accounts. As a retired, multi-qualified nurse with managerial experience and no gag on my mouth, I can say that depletion of care, follow-up, and quality of care all have a bearing on the end result. My wife was the last nurse to get into the GF (ground floor) unit at Cork University Hospital, just before the infamous moratorium, which went on for too long and devastated the services gradually. She has now left and is not gagged either. I suggest the Health Minister James Reilly talks to grieving families. Listen to them. Listen to the experts.

Minister, I spent almost 50 years in nursing, at some of the best and some of the worst hospitals in the UK. It is heartbreaking to see lives wasted. A builder would be up on manslaughter charges if his shoddy brickwork caused the collapse of a building that killed people. In the health service, no-one seems to be accountable. My first wife suffered depression and took her own life in 1963.