The Royal Edinburgh hospital is investigating to figure out why a woman admitted for psychiatric problems in 2020 was able to kill herself in her room despite the fact that her son warned the hospital that his mother was a suicide risk.
Christopher MacRae says he was clear to a nurse that his mother, Dr. Sara MacRae, was planning to kill herself, and that he gave this information just a few hours before she committed suicide. Sara MacRae was a psychiatrist who had her own several mental health troubles since the 1990s.
Christopher MacRae said he gave written evidence to the nurse on duty and pleaded with her to search his mother’s hospital room for anything she might use to hurt herself. But no search took place, and Sara MacRae did take her own life in her room.
The National Health Service has issued an apology to the family and says that it has made its process to identify those at risk of suicide more robust since the tragedy. Details about the incident and the aftermath are not clear as most media avoid reporting on the details of suicides out of concern that it may encourage others to do the same.
Son Christopher MacRae said he brought what he only described as “an object” to the attention of medical staff. He said “there was no doubt” that his mother planned to use this object to kill herself. He trusted the hospital and its staff, MacRae said, to take care of his mother, but they did not.
He took his mother to the hospital because that was the place that seemed most safe for someone in her condition, the grieving son said. But on the day of her death, his mother was “more unwell than on the day she went in,” he claimed.
The NHS has apologized to the family and has acknowledged that they have a legitimate complaint. But there is some evidence that the service did not take seriously known safety risks at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. For example, the door to the room occupied by Sara MacRae had been noted as dangerous in some way, and likely to be used by a patient to commit suicide. Yet today it has still not been replaced. Not only that, but all the doors in the hospital were scheduled to be replaced as “urgent” in 2022, and despite having the funds, the NHS has not yet completed the work.
A number of other slipshod practices are apparent. No safety briefing for staff was held the day of her death, the staff were not informed of MacRae’s earlier suicide attempts, and at least one nurse has admitted making a serious mistake in not taking her son’s warnings more seriously.
