hospital goes to Defcon ONE when...

[rcjordan]

...you answer 'yes' to suicidal thoughts. (I was out there for day surgery today.)


hhh! I make no bones about telling people I have severe and frequent bouts of depression.  But I haven't mentioned it in hospitals in the past because it can filter back to your private insurance profile and they'd jack the rate.

But now we have Obamacare moderating and I'm getting ready to flip over to Medicare anyway, so today I thought I'd see what happens.

IMO, *anyone* with severe, life-long depression has a passing thought about suicide fairly frequently. So when the nurse asked, I told her 'Sure. Last one was maybe 2 months ago.'

Holy Shit, I've had to talk to everyone but the janitor.

[littleman]

I experienced this second hand recently with a family member.  She ended up having a 5150 (involuntary psychiatric hold) placed on her.  It was a traumatic experience.  She told me that next time she would just lie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5150_%28involuntary_psychiatric_hold%29

[rcjordan]

I finally got things back on track when the social worker asked me what she could do to help. "Terminate this discussion."  She was kind of [strike]pissed[/strike] mad.

[ergophobe]

Good to know honestly.

My sister had a co-worker with poor command of English and from a culture where "I'll kill myself" is a common phrase that people throw out like "I'd be so bummed." They asked what he'll do if X occurs and he said "Oh, I'll kill myself." He was essentially incarcerated for five days until a culturally aware translator showed up and explained that the guy had no intention of actually killing himself.

[rcjordan]

>good to know

I have a daughter who is soon to take over as Administrator for a high-end nursing home in Wilmington, NC.  We just had a long talk about this.  The DEFCON response is pretty well scripted in medical institutions in the US. Here's how it goes:

[1] Ask if the patient has suicidal thoughts.

[2] If yes, ask if they have a "plan." Also ask if they have "intent."

If they get a yes answer to either plan or intent, then they are pretty much required to place you on involuntary psychiatric hold for further evaluation.