Suicide moves ‘too little, too late’

THE father of the 28-year-old woman who drowned her two daughters before killing herself says improvements to suicide prevention services in Wexford announced yesterday are just too little, too late.

“Nothing will bring back my little girl,” said a distraught Eddie Reddy yesterday, just 24 hours after he helped carry his daughter’s remains from their parish church in Barntown to the graveyard outside.

The mother of three could not get access to Wexford’s Ely hospital when she sought help before drowning her daughters, Mikahla, four, and Abby, three, then killing herself on Saturday night. “My Sharon was looking for someone, looking for help, but she couldn’t get it. We will never, ever forget that, for the rest of our lives,” said her father. “The image of her wandering around, looking for someone from which she could get help will be with us for the rest of our lives. When we found out she had called to the hospital and got no one, we were even more shattered. If someone had just even brought her in, sat her down, given her a cup of tea, chatted with her, it might have changed her mind. But there was nobody on and nobody there to help.”

Seven people, including Sharon and her children, died in the county since Saturday. A 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, a doctor in his 50s and a farmer in his 70s have also taken their lives in unrelated circumstances.

The Health Services Executive has announced that clinical nurse specialist hours, which were confined to 9am to 5pm from Monday to Friday, are now extended until 1am, seven days a week at the accident and emergency department of Wexford General Hospital, with immediate effect.

But there are no plans to increase cover at Ely Hospital, where Wexford town’s social workers are based. It was to that unit that desperate mother Sharon Grace called on Saturday night last, looking for a social worker. None was on duty.

Social services had been at her home about four miles away the previous day. She left the hospital without protest, before she made her way to Kaats Strand 100 yards away to drown her two daughters, then herself.