# Woman attempts suicide then gets compensation - WTF?! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 6, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371 "2005-12-06T16:16:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/61 "2005-12-08T14:30:20Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > That’s something we can’t gather from reading the article. I would suspect that the only person who can give a sensible answer is a qualified medical professional with full access to the relevant medical records. Such information is probably unlikely to come out if the case has been settled with no admittance of liability. So we don’t know, and we likely won’t ever know, if the liability award was really justified. We now return you to the previously scheduled ranting on the basis of inadequate (and possibly inaccurate) information. Have a nice day! ---
**Author:** ![St.Urho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/62 "2005-12-08T22:55:30Z")
> [@Steve Wright](#): > > Ambulance services divide calls into Category A (life-threatening) and Category B (all others). Thanks, I’m not familiar with the area. Do we know if it was dispatched as Category A or B? We typically go non-emergent on suicide attempts unless there are changes to the patients mental status or airway, breathing, or circulatory status. Based on the (admittedly scanty) information in the article, this probably would have been dispatched as an alpha-response (non-emergent), with a response time goal of anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on where it was in our zone. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/63 "2005-12-08T23:54:18Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > Whoops, my bad. I got mixed up reading the article and thought the husband found her unconscious. Still, how long had it been from the time she attempted suicide till her husband found her? If it had been hours, then would the extra sixteen minutes have made a difference? That’s something we can’t gather from reading the article. Once again, where do you get off assuming that the decision was wrong just because the one newspaper article cited didn’t specifically say how the decision was made? Do you honestly believe that you, in posting this, came up with a shocking new angle from which to analyze the case that hadn’t occurred to anyone else? I know it’s fun to rant about something without any actual knowledge of it - you certainly seem to enjoy doing that in this thread, at least - but what in the world makes you think that those factors weren’t taken into account when the settlement was reached? Do you seriously think the NHS settled the case for a sum that large without being reasonably sure themselves that their culpability would be proven in court? For you to keep asking this implies that you think it wasn’t adequately established by the parties during the settlement negotiation. Which means that either you believe the NHS’ attorneys to be so stupid that they offered 2.8 million pounds in a settlement without stopping to think about whether they were at fault, or you think that your idea here - that we should figure out the actual medical circumstances surrounding malpractice cases - is some sort of major leap forward in legal reasoning, and before this no legal scholar had ever realized that it was important to establish culpability in cases like this. Honestly, we’ve gone over this plenty of times in this thread already. Read the other posts. Think about them. Apply some reasoning to the situation. There are two possibilities here: either (1) a notoriously right-wing newspaper in a slanted piece about “compensation culture” didn’t divulge every single factor establishing the NHS’ culpability in a medical malpractice case, or (2) the NHS’ attorneys are reading your posts and slapping their foreheads now, saying, “Gosh, this guy’s right! Why did we agree to settle for that much money without even figuring out what happened? Okay, write this on a sticky note: ‘Next time, figure out what happened _before_ you offer the multimillion pound settlement!’” Now, **Knowed Out** , which possibility is a more reasonable one? It’s certainly true that we don’t have enough information in this one newspaper article to verify for ourselves that genuine medical malpractice occurred. But it simply goes against reason to believe that the people whose job it was to gather that information didn’t do so. Why do you assume, **Knowed Out** , that because a piece of information wasn’t contained in one single newspaper article about a situation, that that piece of information wasn’t obtained? I’ve tried to explain earlier in this thread exactly why it’s so inconceivable that the lawyers handling this case didn’t obtain this information (yes, even though it wasn’t printed in the newspaper.) Do you understand, **Knowed Out** , that the amount of information in a typical civil court case (or a settlement such as this) is _vastly_ greater than can be contained in a single newspaper article? Do you understand that there are people whose livelihoods depend upon their ability to gather just exactly the sort of information you don’t think was considered? Can you come up with any plausible set of circumstances that the information you discuss wouldn’t have been gathered before a settlement was arrived at - even if it meant the lawyers and medical experts in question had to do more than simply read a newspaper article? Assuming since you personally don’t know a particular piece of information that therefore it must be the case that no one knows it is a thought process I’ve run across before. It’s far too common for me to think it reflects some deep pathology, but it’s so vastly stupid and narcissistic to believe that you know all the facts and can render judgment - or even intelligently question a judgment - after reading one newspaper article that I have to believe it, at very least, reflects some deep flaw in the neural wiring of a certain portion of the population. It’s completely implausible that the information you discuss, **Knowed Out** , would not have been under consideration during settlement negotiations. Why do you assume just because _you personally_ haven’t seen proof, that no one has done so? Don’t you understand that there are many people at work in situations like this whose profession is oriented around finding and analyzing such information? Granted, the importance of critical thinking is probably greater in our society today than it was during hunter-gatherer times. Still, I have to wonder how stupidity as mind-boggling as what **Knowed Out** keeps expressing over and over in this thread didn’t breed itself out of the human population. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/64 "2005-12-09T00:13:00Z")
Or, put another way, the fact that this woman and her family received such a large settlement is, itself, evidence that those sixteen minutes would indeed have made a difference. ---
**Author:** ![St.Urho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/65 "2005-12-09T01:01:10Z")
Not necessarily, it could very well have been the “catalogue of errors” which we know nothing about. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/66 "2005-12-09T17:17:29Z")
Wow **Excalibre** , talk about repetition, assumptions and wordiness… So what you’re basically saying is, we can assume they did talk about it in court. The hospital wouldn’t have settled otherwise. So it’s pointless to ask about it and keep asking about it and keep asking about it… The reason I asked (only twice) in the first place is because the answer isn’t provided in the article or in any of the learned discussion that took place in this thread. What’s so bad about me wanting to know the facts about the case? That is what the SDMB is for, to fight ignorance, correct? Sorry you got so ticked off about that. Obiouvsly the masses aren’t allowed to question their news sources. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/67 "2005-12-09T17:58:12Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > Wow **Excalibre** , talk about repetition, assumptions and wordiness… > > So what you’re basically saying is, we can assume they did talk about it in court. The hospital wouldn’t have settled otherwise. So it’s pointless to ask about it and keep asking about it and keep asking about it… > > The reason I asked (only twice) in the first place is because the answer isn’t provided in the article or in any of the learned discussion that took place in this thread. What’s so bad about me wanting to know the facts about the case? That is what the SDMB is for, to fight ignorance, correct? > > Sorry you got so ticked off about that. Obiouvsly the masses aren’t allowed to question their news sources. I was repetitive because I was pointing out something I pointed out earlier in the thread. Other people had pointed it out as well. I _don’t_ think you should trust your news sources much at all, especially in this case when a slanted article got a bunch of people’s undies in a bundle with a heavily biased article designed to get people fuming about ‘compensation culture’ (as news sources in the United States have been doing for the past few years as well.) But I don’t see the point in idly speculating that some detail of the case that we simply have no knowledge of would have changed the outcome greatly. We might as well ask (since the article gives no mention of it) whether she pulled out all her IV tubes in the ambulance in a fit of rage and punched each of the paramedics in the jaw - if so, then the paramedics can hardly be blamed for delaying treatment. But since we have no reason to suspect that’s the case, it would be bizarre to offer it up as a justification for the article’s heavily biased depiction of the incident. There’s simply no point in sitting here and second guessing a case on the basis of zero evidence, even if we can come up with hypotheticals like yours or like the one I offered in the previous paragraph that support the popular outrage over ‘frivolous lawsuits’. Since the settlement reached rested on the 16 minute delay (along with the ‘catalogue of errors’ that the article didn’t see fit to describe - talk about bias in the media!), it makes no sense to suggest that the 16 minute delay had nothing to do with the woman’s ultimate outcome. If you can find more information on the case, go right ahead. No one else has offered any other articles about it; I wouldn’t know where to begin searching out information about a medical malpractice incident in the UK, since I don’t know much about which UK news sources are reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/68 "2005-12-09T18:18:56Z")
Sorry for not responding recently - busy IRL etc… I’ve not really got much else to add other than to say thanks to various people for different things, and to thank all of you for once again changing the way I think (and post), for the better I hope! I may come back with more comments when I have more time, but thanks to: - **Excalibre** , **Miller** , and others for eloquently expressing the other side of the argument and showing how wrong much of my OP is; - All those who contributed links (which I’m afraid I haven’t had time to read yet, but I’ll be back!) and experiences on depression, especially **furt** for backing me up, and **black455** for the intelligent response; - All those who came in in support and enabled us to have a good debate. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/69 "2005-12-09T18:35:50Z")
> [@Dead Cat](#): > > - **Excalibre** , **Miller** , and others for eloquently expressing the other side of the argument and showing how wrong much of my OP is; Aww, thanks. I tend to be very distrustful of the idea that ‘frivolous lawsuits’ are a huge problem; I think the notion has become so popular that it’s pretty easy for a case like this, where the settlement doesn’t seem to be unfair at all, to be called ‘frivolous’ because people are far too ready to decide that about most lawsuits. I’ve mentioned in passing that I think there’s a propaganda push here; I honestly believe that there’s a concerted lobbying effort on the part of large companies to make the idea of frivolous lawsuits popular enough that it becomes much harder to sue in cases where genuine negligence occurred. If large corporations’ lobbying in the area is successful, think of the potential for them to get that much wealthier by avoiding responsibility for their own errors. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/70 "2005-12-10T00:20:26Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I tend to be very distrustful of the idea that ‘frivolous lawsuits’ are a huge problem; I think the notion has become so popular that it’s pretty easy for a case like this, where the settlement doesn’t seem to be unfair at all, to be called ‘frivolous’ because people are far too ready to decide that about most lawsuits. I think it’s possible you’re both right and wrong, **Excalibre**. There are a lot of people going on about frivolous lawsuits who have, IMNSHO, mixed motives. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think that there are things that need to be reconsidered, and perhaps standardized, about tort law in the US. (BTW, if the article linked in the OP mentions that there was a recent parliamentary select committee on frivolous lawsuits I don’t think it’s **solely** a fabrication of the news source reporting in the OP.) As I said in my previous post, there’s something wrong when being 5% (or less) at fault for an incident of malpractice can get a corporation stuck with 100% of the liability. Especially when one aspect of the malpractice was that the doctor involved was dosing without any regard to the corporation’s recommended dosage rates. (This is based on a specific case my father got involved with as an expert witness. I don’t know how much is public on this, so I don’t want to be more specific than that. I can’t provide a cite for this, I’m afraid - you’ll have to either take my word, or not, as you choose.) Similarly, there’s a problem when whenever a corporation does a cost-benefit analysis it’s used in the tort system to hammer the corporation come liability issues. The general rule, AIUI, is that juries view any figure chosen for the value of a human life to be insufficient. So, this leaves corporations either having to place artificially high values on human life, or more likely - to skip cost-benefit analysis, and simply say that they had a feeling that something was too expensive to fix. If you want to wax philosophical about the assumptions behind cost-benefit analysis, I’m with you. I don’t think it’s quite the same thing as talking about the issue of frivolous lawsuits, though. We might want to go to a different thread for that. ---
**Author:** ![Cerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2005, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371/71 "2005-12-10T01:12:28Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Just to be contrarian: > > I am and have been clinically depressed for 12 years, and I think people do bear significant responsibility for things they do while depressed, including suicide attempts. Without knowing the details, it’s possible there were real errors (giving the wrong meds, etc) by the ambulance people. > > People who are so depressed that they seriously aren’t responsible for their actions are probably unable to function at all; I don’t know if that’s what this mom is like or if she is a more garden-variety depressive. I do know that if I start slashing away at my wrists and end up dead, the ultimate blame lies with me. She had post-partum (perinatal) depression, which isn’t anything (imo) like “garden-variety depression” (in that the depression itself has a very specific trigger). It’s a hormonal imbalance triggered by pregnancy/childbirth that can go from virtually non-existant (before childbirth) to psychotic-break severe in a very short time (after childbirth). [http://www.womenshealth.gov/faq/postpartum.htm](http://www.womenshealth.gov/faq/postpartum.htm) > [@](#): > > Depression after pregnancy is called postpartum depression or peripartum depression. After pregnancy, hormonal changes in a woman’s body may trigger symptoms of depression. During pregnancy, the amount of two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, in a woman’s body increases greatly. In the first 24 hours after childbirth, the amount of these hormones rapidly drops back down to their normal non-pregnant levels. Researchers think the fast change in hormone levels may lead to depression, just as smaller changes in hormones can affect a woman’s moods before she gets her menstrual period. > > Occasionally, levels of thyroid hormones may also drop after giving birth. The thyroid is a small gland in the neck that helps to regulate your metabolism (how your body uses and stores energy from food). Low thyroid levels can cause symptoms of depression including depressed mood, decreased interest in things, irritability, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, and weight gain. A simple blood test can tell if this condition is causing a woman’s depression. If so, thyroid medicine can be prescribed by a doctor. > > _-snip-_ > > The baby blues can happen in the days right after childbirth and normally go away within a few days to a week. A new mother can have sudden mood swings, sadness, crying spells, loss of appetite, sleeping problems, and feel irritable, restless, anxious, and lonely. Symptoms are not severe and treatment isn’t needed. But there are things you can do to feel better. Nap when the baby does. Ask for help from your spouse, family members, and friends. Join a support group of new moms or talk with other moms. > > Postpartum depression can happen anytime within the first year after childbirth. A woman may have a number of symptoms such as sadness, lack of energy, trouble concentrating, anxiety, and feelings of guilt and worthlessness. The difference between postpartum depression and the baby blues is that postpartum depression often affects a woman’s well-being and keeps her from functioning well for a longer period of time. Postpartum depression needs to be treated by a doctor. Counseling, support groups, and medicines are things that can help. > > Postpartum psychosis is rare. It occurs in 1 or 2 out of every 1000 births and usually begins in the first 6 weeks postpartum. Women who have bipolar disorder or another psychiatric problem called schizoaffective disorder have a higher risk for developing postpartum psychosis. Symptoms may include delusions, hallucinations, sleep disturbances, and obsessive thoughts about the baby. A woman may have rapid mood swings, from depression to irritability to euphoria. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-attempts-suicide-then-gets-compensation-wtf/334371.md?page=3)