BEING a doctor of Emergency Medicine, working in one of the busiest NHS hospitals here in the UK, I would like to say something about Kamran Faisal’s death.

Suicide results from many complex socio-cultural factors and is more likely to occur during periods of socio-economic, family and individual crisis (e.g. loss of a loved one, unemployment, sexual orientation, difficulties with developing one’s identity, disassociation from one’s community or other social/belief group, and honour).

It is a complex phenomenon that usually occurs along a continuum, progressing from suicidal thoughts, to planning, to attempting suicide, and finally dying by suicide.

I see a wide variety of patients every day, including psychiatric patients.

You should keep in mind that in the United Kingdom a wide spectrum of protocols comes into play on recognition of a potential high-risk psychiatric patient. Psychiatric patients undergo long-haul mental state changes.

To actually kill yourself is the last resort for even a chronic-depressed individual probably on a dose of anti-depressants.

Only when depression becomes chronic, it defines itself as a condition (disease) which puts your daily-life activities at a halt; then only it puts you at a higher risk for self-harm.

A person who is a potential threat to himself cannot function in society like we do and that to a position Kamran was enjoying.

I also express disapproval of the psychiatrist who actually turned up and informed the public that Kamran had once visited her, in saying so to create an opinion of Kamran’s ill mental health.

She has breached all codes of ethics and the foremost patients’ confidentiality.

However, let me emphasise also on the growing numbers of suicidal rates and the need for school-based interventions involving crisis management, self-esteem enhancement and the development of coping skills and healthy decision-making, which will help reduce the risk of suicide among youths.

DR USMAN MANSOOR
Specialty Doctor
Accident and Emergency
Department, NHS, UK