We’ve noted and mentioned an anecdotal increase in the number of people pushed beyond their ability to cope during the Age of Pandemic, with many people seemingly choosing to opt out of their lives for reasons which may – in many cases – be forever known only to them.
Pressure from internal family dynamics, job loss, addictions, evictions – proved to be too much for an as-yet undetermined number of Contra Costans, though recent statements from health care workers at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek suggested an unprecedented spike in suicides may be responsible for killing more local people than the virus itself.
This has been a popular, much repeated argument used to point fingers at both sides of the political spectrum – with many arguing that the need to shelter in place was overstated from the start and that the harm caused by a resultant economic shutdown would be far greater than that caused by COVID-19.
The latter argument seemingly got a boost after two local health care professionals gave interviews to a local television crew.
In a statment to ABC 7 News, Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, the emergency department head at John Muir, said: “I think, originally, (the shelter-in-place order) was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients. We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”
Without offering any specific data, though such data may still be too fresh to have been adequately compiled, deBoisblanc added: “We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time. I mean we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”
Ed: According to information compiled by the Centers for Disease Control, there were 107 suicides reported in Contra Costa in 2017, the last year for which information was provided. No specific data was given for the number of attempts.
John Muir trauma nurse Kacey Hansen, who told ABC 7 she’d worked at the hospital for almost 33 years, said the spike in cases was also troubling for the severity of self-inflicted injury doctors and nurses are seeing.
“What I have seen recently, I have never seen before,” Hansen told ABC. “I have never seen so much intentional injury.”
As might be expected, the statements of the the two Walnut Creek health care professionals immediately became the focus of a push me/pull you argument thread – conducted largely on Social Media – which sought to apply political blame for an increased suicide rate on public officials who sought to implement public protection measures.
And, as also might be expected, those arguments quickly took on the level of vehemence seen in recent political diatribes, with pundits pointing fingers at political figures and parties they hold responsible for the economic ruination of the state or nation.
What we found distressing was the relatively quick manner suicide victims were put to use proving one political argument over another – instead of demonstrating the inherent fragility of all our lives during a period of uncertain health conditions and economic stress.
While the debate over government response to the pandemic rages and people on both sides of the argument continue to point the finger at one another or lay blame, John Muir Health issued the following statement:
“John Muir Health has been, and continues to be, supportive of the Shelter-in-Place order put in place by Contra Costa County Health Services to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We realize there are a number of opinions on this topic, including within our medical staff, and John Muir Health encourages our physicians and staff to participate constructively in these discussions. We all share a concern for the health of our community whether that is COVID-19, mental health, intentional violence or other issues. We continue to actively work with our Behavioral Health Center, County Health and community organizations to increase awareness of mental health issues and provide resources to anyone in need. If you are in a crisis and need help immediately, please call 211 or 800-833-2900 or text ‘HOPE’ to 20121 now. We are all in this together, and ask the community to please reach out to anyone who you think might be in need during this challenging time. Thank you.”
I have it on good authority that Joe Scarborough is a murderer. Check it out. But you didn’t hear it from me….. Unimpeachable source — well sort of unimpeachable.
Not to beat a dead horse, and suicide is certainly complicated when looking at the numbers vs individual circumstances, the USA ain’t what it used to be. It is, without a doubt, and fully supported by a mountain of facts and decades and decades worth of trend data, a downwardly mobile society. Meaning that for a LARGE majority of our population children will not do as well as their parents, and, based upon your income level, Americans kids today will likely not live as long as their parents. These trends are worsening gradually year after year as the once resilient US middle class is whittled away by policies that have overwhelmingly favored the wealthy over everyone else. Add a pandemic and depression era unemployment and you are going to have a LOT of despair. Add in fractured communities and fractured families and you have even worse environmental triggers for suicide and mental illness. A sh!t environment, a dying planet, and poor prospects for the future for most Americans (by far) cannot be overcome by taking the blue pill. Eventually, all of the pills stop working. Drugs will not make a poor environment into a happy place– at least not for very long. I now expect the usual happy talk or abject denial of reality responses to commence. It does not change the data or the trends.
Agree.
I never thought I would say this but we do appear to be headed in this direction. While I am lucky to have my own business and to have it still earning during this crisis I have several well educated friends who are jobless and — apparently — soon to be out of the last of their savings. Are more people taking their own lives?? I have no personal knowledge of it but I wouldn’t be surprised. Where do you go when you have nothing, your landlord is demanding the rent, and that nagging pain turns into an expensive and potentially fatal ailment??? There are no safety nets in this country – don’t expect anyone to come help you.
What we CAN expect is more instability, rage, and eventually, violence. Unless we are exempt from the last two thousand years of human history and behavior. I doubt that we are. Real unemployment is close to thirty percent and many of those jobs will not return and the ones that do will take many years– look at 2008 crash– how short the “recession” was and how long it took to get back to low unemployment. The bills you have to pay are on a hard schedule BTW, while the money you may or may not earn with your new “gig economy” job is wherever and whenever– no reliability. We’re creating a kind of neo-feudalism– so expect peasant uprisings and violent reactions from the authorities. This is going to get very ugly very soon if history is any guide.