The man, who is in his 70s, had been feeling worse during a period and had ongoing contact with his health care center due to depression and anxiety. One summer last year, he sought urgent help at the health center, along with his relatives, and told of impulsive thoughts about taking his life.

He was referred to the psychiatric emergency department in Trollhättan for an assessment and possible admission. There he talked about having dark thoughts but no suicidal thoughts. He had sedatives prescribed by the doctor and sent home, to be followed up by phone by a mobile healthcare team. When they called later the same day, the man stated that he had thoughts of taking his life, but no plans for it, and he expressed disappointment that he had not been hospitalized. When the mobile team contacted him the next day, he had taken his life.

Ivo criticizes

Now Ivo criticizes the psychiatrist in Trollhättan for not making a suicide risk assessment of the man who was depressed and earlier during the day said that he would overdose in order to take his life. They believe that the overall picture with information from relatives and the history of illness clearly shows that the patient was feeling very bad. Ivo therefore questions the decision to send the patient home with planned phone follow-up from the mobile team. This is what the authority writes in the investigation of the complaint from the husband's widow.

Kent Storm operations manager is self-critical of the incident.

- I agree with Ivo's criticism. These are always difficult assessments, but of course they could have made a better assessment and asked the relatives about his condition more actively. It was not an individual conversation with the relatives, and it is not good, he says.

"Not so deep depression"

Kent Storm believes that the information about the man's illness picture did not appear at the conversation with the man's wife. Nor that he would have expressed a wish that he wanted to overdose in order to take his life.

- During the interview, the nurse did not feel that it was such a deep depression, it was more about being dissatisfied with the medication, he says.