phenomenon of suicide

Chairman of the Psychiatric Association Moshe Kotler talks about the phenomenon of suicide

In the past year, there has been an outcry over the issue of suicide of patients who stay in psychiatric hospitals around the country. The families of the patients claimed that the hospital staff was criminally responsible , which in the end did not take a reasonable approach to prevent suicide in practice. According to the psychiatric associations, headed by Prof. Moshe Kotler, who heads the Be'er Ya'akov hospital and chairman of the Association of Psychiatrists, it is certainly not possible to impose criminal liability on a doctor and treat a person suffering from mental distress, if he committed suicide . Why is this the situation on the ground?

A hospital is not a prison

Prof. Moshe Kotler explained in the position paper that the psychiatric hospital is not a prison at all, with all that this implies. This is first and foremost about a hospital - a place designed to help a person recover from his mental illness and provide him with the tools to handle it well. However, according to Moshe Kotler, it is unrealistic that a person who repeatedly wants to commit suicide and does not suffer from a psychotic attack can not do so in a psychiatric hospital. Why is this the same? To a person with a very serious illness, and his family will come to the doctor claiming that he can not treat the disease and sue him for medical negligence - although clearly the doctor does not have the tools to do anything. Moshe Kotler explains that even in the case of a small number of mental patients - as long as they are not in a psychotic attack and pose a danger to the environment, it is actually forbidden to handcuff them or keep them closed in isolation cells without equipment.

Emptying life of their meaning
A statement issued by the psychiatric organizations made it clear that there were actually plenty of ways for a person to commit suicide, and almost all the equipment in a regular hospital room, from bed sheet to hospital tree, could help suicide. Of course, it is the doctor's job to make the patient as easy as possible - but to be criminally responsible for him in any situation where a patient commits suicide is bordered on irrationality.