"Death in care criticism "
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Category: Child Protection Australia media articles
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Created: Saturday, 18 November 2006 23:30
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Written by Jamie Walker - Courier Mail Queensland
THE State Government will consider new safety measures for psychiatric patients in care after a Coroner hit out at a "fatalistic professional attitude" to the risk of suicide.
Helen Jeffrey, 30, suffocated herself with a plastic bag provided by Nambour General Hospital staff on March 24 last year.
She had been admitted to the psychiatric intensive care unit after attempting suicide and became the second sectioned psychiatric patient in two years in Queensland to end her life using a plastic bag.
Maroochydore Coroner Ken Taylor last week made nine recommendations over Ms Jeffrey's death to Health Minister Stephen Robertson – expressing surprise that hospital staff had not identified plastic bags as a potential suicide aid.
"I have felt somewhat uneasy about what I shall, for the sake of convenience, term a fatalistic professional attitude towards suicide risk," Mr Taylor wrote.
A spokesman for Mr Robertson said the Minister was awaiting a copy of the recommendations which include a call to remove all objects "not uncommonly used as a means of suicide or attempted suicide".
Mr Taylor also recommended that Mr Robertson examine the feasibility of fitting remote pulse-monitoring wrist bands to all psychiatric patients held in state care.
Staff psychiatrist Keith Muir told the inquest that, in 35 years of clinical experience, he had never encountered such a death.
Asked by Mr Taylor if he was alarmed by the presence of plastic bags in psychiatric units, Dr Muir said: "Yes and no."
"The fact is that people who are determined to kill themselves . . . you know, that old expression, 'Where there is a will, there is a way'," Dr Muir said.
Mr Taylor said it was with a "considerable degree of incredulity" that he received the evidence that plastic bags had not been identified as a potential suicide aid before Ms Jeffrey's death.
Although Ms Jeffrey's family was entitled to be disappointed, the Coroner made no criticism of the standard of care.
"I am satisfied there was no wilful neglect," he said.
The Health Minister's office said plastic bags were already being removed "where ever practical" from psychiatric wards in line with precautions triggered by Ms Jeffrey's death.
But the spokesman said it would be difficult to eliminate their presence because plastic bags were necessary to line "communal" bins for potentially infectious or unhygienic waste. (Source :http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/death-in-care-criticism/story-e6freoof-1111112550110)
"Grandmother questions foster care death by holding Leduc protest"
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Category: Child Protection Australia media articles
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Created: Thursday, 21 July 2011 23:30
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Written by Simon Yackulic
A Warburg area woman isn't giving up on her granddaughter's memory and is leading a charge to look into Alberta's foster care deaths.
The women took to Leduc's main street to protest in front of the Alberta Family and Child Services office Friday, July 15, with around a dozen supporters and hundreds of signs, some of which read "stop killing our children" "work with families not against them" and "Secrets? What are you hiding and covering up?"
"On April 5, a social worker from this office went to my daughter's place to apprehend her roommate's (two) children," the grandmother explained, speaking in front of the Leduc office. "As an afterthought they apprehended my daughter's baby, and refused to let any family member take that baby and just stuck her in a foster home on the south side of Edmonton."
An affidavit signed by a social worker two days later, on April 7, claimed that the child needed to be removed as "the infant has been subjected to disharmony in the home and the child is left with inexperienced babysitters" and her mother "appears to suffer from an alcohol addiction."
On April 8, the grandmother visited the baby at the foster parent's house with her daughter. She said that they were distressed by what they saw.
"She had poop on the side of her bum from not being cleaned up properly previously. She had such a diaper rash it was disgusting," she said.
"I asked (the foster parent) how long she had diarrhea. When we saw her on Friday she had diarrhea for three days. And I asked if she had taken her to a doctor and (the foster parent) said 'no, if she's not better by Monday I'll make an appointment.' Monday she died. She let that baby lay there and suffer for five days without taking her for any sort of medical attention."
