Let me start by saying I'm very sorry for the losses you experience Charlie J and the unfortunate effects they had on your life and your mother's life.

I studied health sciences and neuroscience in university, as well as conducted various experiments. I also am part-time in a hospital but not in psychiatry. I've seen patients who displayed similar drowsiness (theirs was due to medication) as well as seen various friends like that due to alcohol intoxication. In both cases, you cannot get a reliable assessment of their cognition and in order to predict what they will do with any certainty, you need to understand their thinking and cognition. I'm baffled at the fact the doctor admitted this then went against it all. When a patient or their family ask for a second opinion, they're entitled to it. They may have to wait several hours or even a day or two but during that time, the patient still has to be kept safe.

I've had a few friends who tried on more than one occasion to commit suicide. What I learned from them, university and the psychiatrists, when someone comes into the hospital from a suicide attempt, their wounds and such are treated and then they are assessed. They're always kept for several days. If they are determined and have had more than one suicide attempt, chances are they're going to try again until successful, so all the better to keep them until the doctor can be reasonable sure they're safe and even then, they're put on suicide watch outside the hospital.

More often than not they're very good but sadly there are utterly horrible ones. I've had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with them when visiting a loved one in the hospital and I asked myself how on Earth did they get certified to practice. Currently, the infuriating one is one of the doctors my family members see who has made me question whether their focus actually is my family members' well-being or just screwing around blindly. That doctor has made the simplest of procedures an absolute headache and gone as far as negated what other specialists recommended and prescribed, yet when asked for a rationale, either none was given or it was bogus (I went as far as asking the other specialists of this doctors' rationale and they admitted it was sometimes bogus or completely irrelevant to the matter at hand). They finally are cooperating now but there still are times when, without any sort of recent lab work, they'll suddenly change the prescription despite evidence it was effective. Some of these medications are for managing behavior and sure enough, they fly off the handle and end up in the hospital.