Husband of suicide victim hits out at suicide prevention campaign 

A grieving man whose wife walked in front of a train the day after doctors turned her away from a psychiatric unit yesterday hit out at the Government’s anti-suicide campaign.

Joseph Henry, a retired man from Carraroe, Sligo, said: “The Government is spending millions on television adverts on suicide awareness. Night after night, we are advised about it and how we can help.

“Yet the professionals are ignoring the same advice.”

Mr Henry was speaking out after an inquest heard his wife Bridie, aged 63, was refused access a number of times to St Columba’s psychiatric unit in Sligo. Her last attempt at admission was on March 27, 2012, the day before she died.

Doctors had recorded that while Mrs Henry had suicidal thoughts, she had no plans to do so and therefore was not admitted.

Mr Henry and his solicitor plan to write to the HSE for an inquiry under an agreed assessor after the inquest jury returned a verdict of suicide and recommended an independent assessment into how Mrs Henry was dealt with by Sligo mental health services.

The jury said the external probe should identify deficiencies in Mrs Henry’s care and recommend solutions.

Mr Henry said yesterday: “I feel if her illness was managed better the outcome might have been different.

“I am anxious for an investigation so other patients may be helped in the future.”

His wife suffered from depression for 30 years, he said. She was under the care of a private physician in Dublin who was able to control her condition, and never threatened suicide.

He claimed that happened only when she came under the care of Sligo mental health services and remained with them for some months before her death.

She had transferred from her private doctor in Dublin when he had gone to America for a month.

Last week, Mr Henry told the inquest that, the day before the suicide, his wife reportedly told a doctor in Sligo she had been thinking about killing herself the previous week. However, it was decided the risk of self-harm was minimal.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Dimitrios Adamis, based at St Columba’s, said Mrs Henry had had suicidal thoughts but she had no plans to kill herself.

The coroner recommen-ded that jurors return an open verdict as there was no record of intent, but they returned a verdict of suicide by collision with a train.