Possible trigger warning involving attempted suicide
Originally posted in the work topic area but was advised to post here x
This is a really bizarre question, and the only real reason I'm asking is because it hasn't been addressed in my workplace & im not sure how to address it with them if at all?!
Please bare with it's fairly long!
So I work in a kitchen, along side the chefs, there's a few chefs and a few of us who work along side them. I've been there a few months and another woman started at the same time as me. We get on fine.
So last week, this woman told me she was on Suicide watch.. completely out of the blue, in fact we weren't having a conversation at all but she looked at her phone and came out with it. She also said she had to make management aware when we were employed-and also the fact she had tried to commit suicide at her last workplace (right before being employed here)
So this striked me as strange in the first place-its a hospital environment which holds numerous medications, and also being in the kitchen with machinery and knives etc..I wasn't sure as to why she was employed. I know you cannot discriminate against certain things including mental health, but imo that seems a massive risk.
Anyway getting to the actual point, I said to one of the chefs last week, could he go and check where she was as she hadn't been seen in a while and I didn't want to walk into anything myself, he looked at me a bit odd but agreed, he walked out of the kitchen and I followed and she was out cold slumped by the back door-she had OD'd.
Now I obviously said what I said because I knew certain information which I assumed had been passed to the relevant party's (not me-but the chefs-considering they're in charge of the kitchen). But it turns out no one else knew- now obviously we as staff were asked if we knew any medical history and I stated what I knew, after this I was questioned by the chefs as to why I had said that, I obviously said she had told me etc, but no one else knew-except the woman from management who employed us.
So this was Wednesday last week, I had Thursday off anyway, but I received a msg at 7am thurs morning telling me she was back at work..which absolutely shocked me.
Since then, absolutely no one had mentioned anything, as if it never happened. I went in Friday but I left early as I could not bring myself to work with her in fear of her doing it again.
I understand this sounds really selfish of me, but it actually scares me that this has happened, that it hasn't been addressed, that the staff haven't been asked if they're ok following what happened, etc etc.
Do I speak to management about this or do I just leave it? I'm supposed to be working with her tomorrow and it honestly scares me the thought of having to go in now, so much so that I'm debating leaving there altogether-esp if this is how a situation like this is handled.
Does anyone have any idea how to approach management or any experience of a situ like this?
Any advice would be fab, thank you!