Hoorah for our mental health system.

This is not an amusing post. I do not have my happy face on.

This is a story from work this afternoon. I'm going to try and strip it of as much detail as I can to preserve the privacy of those involved, so forgive me if the story is a little vague. This is a public forum, and as much as I need to tell this story I don't want to parade someone else's grief in front of the world.

This afternoon, I got a call from a lady whose husband had recently been released from a mental health unit. She was distraught, because her husband had been suicidal when admitted to the mental health unit, and she had returned home to find him gone. She also found out that he had taken an implement he had apparently been a big part of what the mental health unit called his 'suicide plan'. I did what I could - mainly, I put a broadcast out with his description in the hopes we might catch him in time.

We didn't.

I don't think it's for lack of trying. He was probably already gone before she made the call. But we still didn't find him in time. He was found by a member of the public, some fifteen minutes after she called. We couldn't be sure from the initial call that it was him, but it did involve that implement, so it was unlikely to be anyone else.

Twenty minutes later, or so, she calls back, and I get the call. She's sobbing, because she's just been going through the 'homework' the mental health unit set him. In it she found his suicide note. She read it to me, and I listened, because I knew she needed to tell someone. And I couldn't tell her that her husband was probably already dead (partially, because we hadn't confirmed it was him - but mainly, because I didn't want her to find out from some disembodied voice over the phone, but from an actual person. She'd earned that much, at least.)

She's been told now, I know that much. And while I know the people who work in mental health units are not heartless robots, I know that they try as much as they can on each and every person that passes through their doors, and even that no matter how hard you try, there's just no saving some people - I can't help but think there is something sorely wrong with the system.

A guy died today, leaving behind a grieving, loving wife. Could it have been prevented? Most of me says insufficient data, but a part of me insists the answer's yes. I have plenty of gripes with the mental health system (don't get me started on revolving-door policies), but I touched someone's true, heartfelt grief today because of it.

Something's wrong. Something can be fixed. Maybe it needs more funding, maybe it needs an entire paradigm shift. I don't know, and I'm not in a position to know what or how or where. But something is wrong.

But now, I'm going to go have a beer and reflect on how lucky I am. Maybe later, I'll put on my happy face again.

But not right now.