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“If there is a life-threatening situation, you have to do whatever is possible to save a life, then you treat the underlying cause.”

In the four-page bulletin posted on the college’s website last week, the professional order’s working group on clinical ethics says considerations of obtaining patient consent for treatment have to be set aside in such situations.

It would be negligent not to act.

“From a moral point of view, this duty to act to save the patient’s life, or to prevent him from living with the effects of a too-late intervention, rests on principles of doing good and not doing harm, as well as of solidarity,” it reads. “It would be negligent not to act.”

It says treatment should be withheld only in cases where a physician has “irrefutable proof” of a patient’s wishes in the form of an advance medical directive or a do-not-resuscitate order.

Once stabilized, a survivor of suicide may require psychiatric treatment, the bulletin says. “Recognition of psychological suffering can allow a person who wants to kill himself to picture his life differently,” it says.

Robert said the Quebec Poison Control Centre, which provides emergency advice to physicians treating patients who have ingested poisons or pills, alerted the college to the issue.

“They were concerned by these cases,” he said. “It was not a frequent situation, but it was a situation that raised ethical questions on their part, and they wanted to have some advice from the college.” He said he did not know how many cases occurred or in which hospitals. More than 1,000 people die by suicide every year in Quebec.