2. Having suicidal thoughts is not a good enough reason to make someone take a leave of absence from work or be terminated from employment (actually it’s discriminatory) or hospitalized. A person has to actually have the intention of committing suicide and a plan for suicide in order for mandated reporters, or professionals to intervene.
3. More important, if an employee were to tell his/her boss that they were thinking of harming themselves and they were in direct contact with the public, the employer has a responsibility to probe and in some cases determine if they should call the authorities based on that employee’s plan to harm themselves or others. In several states, like New York, there are laws in place for professionals especially to abide by in case of public threat to safety for suicidal or homicidal risk.
The goals are to keep everyone as safe from harm as possible. It is a thin line to assume that jobs have the right to act on behalf of an employee who may never admit to suicidal thoughts or mental illness and investigating enough about an employee to decide upon how to help them and prevent the public from harm, if the intention and plan are not evident.
Many companies offer an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), a benefits program designed to help employees deal with personal problems that may adversely impact their job performance, health and well-being.
Our job as society should be to make people feel less stigmatized about coming forward with their mental illness and as health professionals, to have better interventions for workers to be supervised and supported in high stress positions.
You Tell Your Boss You’re Thinking About Harming Yourself, Then What? was originally published on blackdoctor.org
