Hospital workers know all too well the prevalence of gun violence and the emotional and physical trauma it can cause when wounded victims are rushed into the emergency room.
Perhaps the last thing they expect is for a firearms-related tragedy to take place inside hospital walls.
But days ago, a patient at the Jesse Brown Veteran Affairs Medical Center shot and killed himself at the hospital on New Year’s Eve, leaving his family, understandably devastated and asking why, and how, it could happen.
How Roy Fred Giddens, a 75-year-old Vietnam veteran, was able to bring a weapon into the hospital is clearly the big question that must be answered as the matter is investigated. Part of finding the answer includes officials addressing what screening protocols or preventive measures, if any, were in place to try and keep a man like Giddens from harming himself. Was he, for example, asked if he had or owned a gun?
Giddens, like many veterans, struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and had medical records that were “saturated with suicidal ideations,“ his brother Donald Giddens told Sun-Times reporter Sophie Sherry.
After Roy Giddens was taken to Jesse Brown for chest pains, he reportedly expressed to both his brother and hospital staff that he didn’t have the will to live. He shot himself in the chest days after he was admitted, a police report said. A nurse was in his room treating another patient when the shooting took place.
Roy Giddens isn’t the first veteran to take his life on VA property. Nineteen people died by suicide on VA campuses ― seven of them in parking lots — between October 2017 to November 2018, according to a Washington Post analysis from five years ago.
Mental health experts told the Washington Post that such acts could be a form of protest from desperate veterans who feel let down by the VA system, which in fairness has helped hundreds of others from taking drastic steps.
But VA officials must examine if more can be done to assist those like Roy Giddens, who was less than satisfied with his previous treatments at the VA hospital and wanted to take legal action as a result, but didn’t.
VA hospitals, which are dealing with men and women more prone to die by suicide compared to the general population, might also consider installing entrance weapons detection systems that have been put in place in hospitals across the country, including the Mayo Clinic.
More importantly, health care workers should not shy away from discussing firearm-related risks with their patients, especially if they have a mental health condition or a history with substance abuse.
When the number of gun-related suicides in the U.S. are at all-time high, every proactive initiative must be explored.
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