Hospital and Telephone Triage

91 videos, 4 hours and 28 minutes

Course Content

Debrief - Mental health - Potential suicide

Video 51 of 91
1 min 23 sec
English
English
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So this was a mental health triage scenario. This patient had no history of mental health, but she did say that she did not want to be here anymore. It is often a difficult question to ask whether somebody felt like killing themselves when they initially took an overdose and whether they still feel like killing themselves. These are difficult questions to ask and they are difficult questions for somebody with mental health to hear asked of them, but they are very important to ask. Patients like this, patients who have mental health problems, because it is a hidden problem because you cannot see it and sometimes it is not taken seriously.

So that is why the patient was accompanied out of the room to make sure that she got to a position of safety. A patient with mental health problems needs to have a full description of their clothes they're wearing, their height, their weight, their build, the colour of their skin, the colour of their hair, in case they do abscond, and we can give a good description to the local authorities to locate them and remember, mental health patients need to be triaged the same way that we triage all other patients and they need to be treated with respect and dignity.