Turned Away

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The River Corrib under the Wolfe Tone Bridge, Galway

Denise McNamara, in the Connacht Tribune, reports:

An 18-year-old girl who was rescued from the River Corrib following a suicide attempt, was then turned away from the Emergency Department at UHG.

Dripping wet from the attempted drowning at Wolfe Tone Bridge, she was assessed in the back of an ambulance by a triage nurse and was deemed unfit to be admitted to the hospital.

She kept insisting she would take her own life, so Gardaí brought her to a cell at Mill Street for her own safety.

When her father arrived to collect her from Galway Garda Station, she was still insisting that she would repeat the suicide attempt.

The pair then drove to the Emergency Department, where he pleaded with medical staff to admit his daughter due to her acute psychotic state. Staff refused, and she remained in a distressed and uncooperative state.

Samaritans: 116 123

Pieta House: 01 6010 000

Aware: 1890 303 302

Suicidal teen rescued from Corrib then turned away by UHG (Connacht Tribune)

Pic: Stan Carey

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26 thoughts on “Turned Away

  1. kellma

    How awful. The poor girl, the poor father. The helplessness of the situation. I guess they don’t take psychiatric emergencies in general hospitals but should she not have been taken to a psychiatric hospital for her own safety?

    1. mildred st. meadowlark

      Are there any psychiatric facilities nearby in Galway that he could have taken her to?

      1. kellma

        I really don’t know but I don’t mean the father should necessarily have taken her. I would have thought either the gardai or the general hospital would have organized for her to be admitted there or at least pointed him in the right direction. That they could just turn her away like that, beggars belief!

        1. mildred st. meadowlark

          Very interesting link. I don’t understand how they could refuse her aid, especially in light of the circumstances. I understand that our healthcare system is an absolute mess, but I don’t understand how anyone could send another person away in a situation like that.

  2. Emmyb

    Goodness… What does ‘unfit to be admitted to the hospital’ mean, I wonder? That it would be inappropriate for her to be there, or somehow detrimental for her to be there, or that they didn’t deem her in enough need?

    1. Spaghetti Hoop

      I’m baffled by that statement too. If she needed referral well and good but she had just been dragged out a river in, I assume, a distressed state.

  3. Jonickal

    Our A&Es should be upgrade to they can cater for mental illness emergencies as well.

  4. Zena

    I know we shouldn’t generalise etc but I’ve come across a fair amount of know-it-all rottweiler receptionists in doctors surgeries and A & E depts over the years, through taking family/friends. Nurses can be rather dismissive too, by times and hard as nails. To garner a bit of understanding or help from these types would be a major break-through.

  5. mahoney

    guys, Enda turned the country around, everything is fixed now they’re obviously blowing this out of proportion

  6. Liam Deliverance

    Ask Enda, now that he has packed it in he might be able to tell the truth for the first time. Probably still protect his cronies though. I wish that young lady all the luck in the world and hope she gets the help she needs.

  7. Jake38

    Everyone here seems to have a fully formed opinion. After hearing one side of the story. From the local newspaper.

    Must be right then.

    1. mildred st. meadowlark

      Can you envision a scenario where it was acceptable to send away a someone under those circumstances?

      1. Barry the Hatchet

        I don’t think it is even remotely acceptable and do not defend what they did. But I would like to hear from the hospital and the staff responsible for turning her away. Maybe it’s very naive of me, but I just can’t believe that healthcare professionals could be so callous as to turn this girl away because they just couldn’t be bothered or didn’t think it was their responsibility. I wonder what pressures they were under and what their reasoning was. I hope they had good intentions, even if they ultimately made a poor decision.

    1. ivan

      I’m no cheerleader for him, but I think the health service has been fupped since the foundation of the state; it *might* be his legacy that it’s not fixed, but I’m almost certain that in order to fix it – properly – you’d need to probably start with a blank sheet of paper, no hospitals, no employees (like, y’know, playing Sim City or summat) and work from there.

      I genuinely despair when I think of what it must be like to implement reform in the HSE. And that’s not to slag off the staff, per se, but I suspect there are a few surplus to requirement there.

  8. This monkey's gone to heaven

    Jaysus lads is not one person under pressure or stress in a difficult job dealing with a collection of amadáns, drunks, junkies, bored oul wans, hypocondriacs, dementeds and the odd deserving emergency case, day in day out, not allowed to make a mistake every once in a while?

    Yous are all so perfect there writing into your little key pads, yous haven’t a bleedin clue yous oul wans yas

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