> Each suicide costs society about $1 million in medical and lost-work expenses and emotionally victimizes an average of 10 other people.
So... the 10 other people emotionally victimized is an average figure, but the $1 million in medical costs isn't? How does finding a dead body rack up any medical expenses?
Depending on the method of suicide, clean-up. A popular way to go here in NL seems to be to jump in front of a train. Traumatized train personnel, a train full of people delayed for hours, loads of clean-up, etc. Jumping off the Golden Gate bridge seems to be relatively clean in comparison.
Taking a day of leave doesn't cause any lost-work expenses, under the standard system of "you get this much leave, and it doesn't roll over". If I take 15 days off in a year, the number of days I work is totally unaffected by whether one of the days off was spent at a funeral, or in some other way.
Say an unemployed 17-year-old kills himself and his funeral is held on a Sunday. I don't think that's a huge stretch, but it results in no days of leave, no work days lost to a funeral, and no sudden job opening needing to be filled.
And clean-up, like Cthulhu_ mentions, isn't a lost-work expense, it's an additional-work expense.
No, it's standard for Bereavement leave to come separably from normal paid time off, similar to maternity leave. It almost never comes from the same "days off" bucket.
So... the 10 other people emotionally victimized is an average figure, but the $1 million in medical costs isn't? How does finding a dead body rack up any medical expenses?