After two suicide cases, the Brothers of Mercy hospital faces serious allegations from relatives. In one case, the prosecutor’s office investigated for negligent homicide. The hospital management rejects the allegations.
BURGENLAND. The prosecutor is investigating the suicide of a 52-year-old psychiatric patient. Again ORF Burgenland reports, the man who was on the top floor of the building jumped out of the window after six days in the hospital.
“It could have been different”
Due to the corona crisis, the psychiatric facility on the ground floor was partially closed. That is why the man was not placed in the psychiatric ward, but in the surgery on the top floor. In the ORF interview, the husband’s wife said “that it could have been different.”
“No Effective Hospital Error”
According to Martin Wehrschütz, the medical director of the hospital, after working through the case internally, it could be said “that an effective error on the part of the hospital was not recognizable”. The patient received “comprehensive psychiatric treatment”, which was done lege artis (according to the regulations, editor’s note), “said Wehrschütz in the ORF interview.
Second case
A second suicide case occurred – according to the ORF report – three days before this tragic event – also in the psychiatric ward. A 33-year-old woman was able to leave the ward and the hospital unnoticed. The mother said in the ORF interview that she was not told that her daughter was missing. “Then a police patrol came and informed me that my daughter was dead,” said the mother who turned on the patient advocate.
The medical director of the hospital pointed out that it had been clearly communicated in which area the woman was allowed to move and in which not: “One has to say very clearly: Thank God the psychiatry of the 21st century is not a prison.”
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