Suicides and Snakebites (Oct. 12)

Things have moved back to normal this week now that Dussehra is over but you never know what you’re going to encounter in a hospital. We’ve become accustomed to snakebite cases coming into the ER but one thing I won’t get used to are the suicide attempts. This week we’ve had one every day this week with the most traumatic being today. Most of the time the people they bring in have taken some sort of poison ranging from pesticides to household cleaners but today they brought in a guy who tried to hang himself. I needed to get the pharmacy key from the ER so when I headed in there they had just finished in abating him and were using a bag to keep him breathing. Of course he had a neck brace on and looked to be in pretty bad shape. They worked on him until about 5 when they decided he was stable enough to be transported by ambulance to Vijayawada.

It’s really sad to see so many suicide attempts in a city that only has 50,000 people. I’m not sure why there are so many here but the reasons they give are dealing with problems at home, spouse abuse, or even as simple as they got into an argument with their husband or wife. We’ve talked to the doctors and staff about why there are so many here in Nuzvid and they don’t understand it either. Evidently the number of suicide attempts seen here is extremely high and abnormal for the rest of India.

I don’t understand and I don’t think I ever will. The only thing you can do is help them when they come in to the hospital and of course pray. It’s hard not being a doctor and going on rounds and seeing patients who have problems and all you can do is pray for them. That’s much better than nothing though…