Crisis team abandoned my son, says bereft mother

By PATRICK GOWER

The mother of a suicidal man who took his life while under the care of a mental health crisis team was told to "take a break" and let them look after him.

The 31-year-old man, whose name is suppressed, committed suicide on January 6, 2000 - five days after his mother arranged a care plan with the Waitemata Health crisis team in which it would phone and visit him each day his family were away.

His family told the Auckland coroner's court yesterday that the crisis team never visited and did not check his medication. They did not follow up unanswered phone calls to the man with home visits as promised.

The mother, who for more than 10 years had cared constantly for her manic-depressive son, left for Taupo early on January 2 to visit her other son, who had just been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

She left the manic-depressive son at home alone after setting up a care plan with the Community Assessment and Treatment Team (CATT).

A nurse had told her "that I should go away, that I needed a break and that 'we will take full responsibility for [him]'."

She wept in court yesterday and had to ask her daughter to read a statement to coroner Dr Murray Jamieson describing how she had been reluctant to go away because her son was in a severe depressive episode. He was unkempt, not talking and lying in his bedroom in the foetal position.

"Had we known the [crisis team] 'care' would be two telephone calls I would never have gone. I also could have arranged family to care for him more effectively, but I believed I had taken him to professionals."

The mother did not know about her son's suicide until police contacted her two days afterwards. She said no one from the crisis team expressed their condolences.

Dr Jamieson yesterday took the unusual step of agreeing to a Herald request to report the case when the family indicated they wanted the hearing made public.

It is still proceeding, and the Waitemata District Health Board has yet to call most of its evidence.

Dr Jamieson suppressed details about the manner of death, and made interim suppression orders on the dead man's name as well as the name of a psychiatrist involved, who feared publication might affect the confidence his private patients had in him.

The mother said her son first made an attempt on his life in 1990 by overdosing.

His last major depressive episode was in August 1999 when he took himself off his medication. He had three fits between then and his death before his medication was changed.

In that time he had suffered four setbacks. His car was stolen, he had a major argument with his father, he broke up with his United States-based girlfriend and had worries about a large student loan.

A friend who visited the son on January 3 - three days before his death - told the court that the man said he had little confidence in the mental health system, and when asked if he had ever contemplated suicide said: "What stopped me was the love of my mother."

The mother told the court that the week after her son died the family received confirmation that his student loan had been "sorted", his car was covered by insurance and a close mate had come from overseas to visit him.

"Had the [crisis] team done their job I believe my son would have been nursed through this and alive today."