A 27-year-old man who killed himself in a hospital toilet after waiting almost 24 hours to see a mental health professional was seriously failed by the NHS, his mother says.
Jamie Pearson was admitted to the emergency department at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on August 17 after taking an overdose of powerful painkillers.
His mother, Julie Knowles, said her son was left in a “depressing” side room for hours with other patients, including one who was also suffering a mental health crisis.
Pearson, a self-employed furniture maker, had been suffering from paranoid delusions and was being treated for acute psychosis when he was admitted to hospital around 7 p.m., Knowles said.
He was taken to a small treatment room and put on an IV around 1 a.m. to prevent damage to his liver, she said.
One patient who spent hours with Pearson in the procedure room said he told her around 4 p.m. — 9 hours after he was admitted to the emergency room — that he was “sinking,” and asked, “When are they going to help me?” ?”
Knowles said “no one seemed to do anything” for her son, so she urgently begged to have him seen by a mental health professional.
A nurse then “marched up” to Pearson and told him he needed to finish his IV before he would be assessed, she said.
Knowles, a former foster carer, said the approach lacked compassion and empathy and her son slumped back in his chair and became even more despondent. A fellow patient said he seemed deflated and clearly desperate for help.
After nearly 24 hours in the emergency room, Pearson became increasingly agitated and went to the bathroom several times, his mother and the fellow patient said.
He then went to the disabled toilet for the last time around 6 p.m. He was found unconscious by staff after Knowles called for help.
“If someone had come to him and said everything was going to be okay, it would have meant a lot to my son. But at no point did anyone from the mental health team come,” she said.
“He was in the right place. He wanted help. I know if he had gotten some help he would have gotten better.
Knowles said she was speaking out so that people suffering from a mental health crisis would be treated with more urgency in emergency rooms.
She said she was particularly concerned that vulnerable people had been placed together for hours in a small treatment room, which she described as hell.
“It was terrible. He was sitting there with all his dark thoughts and someone else was telling him about their tragic life,” she said.
“To put someone on a chair with all those bad thoughts, while other people are in the same situation, is just a shame.”
Knowles said her son had struggled with anxiety since he was a teenager, but was happy, popular and in a loving relationship.
She said his mental health deteriorated after he went on holiday to Benidorm with friends in June when he took cocaine.
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He returned to Blackpool early and experienced paranoid delusions and was convinced neighbors were watching their home, she said.
Knowles said she took her son to Harbor Psychiatric Hospital, where doctors gave him medication to treat acute psychosis.
His condition worsened and he overdosed on powerful painkillers on the night of August 17, shortly before being taken to the emergency room.
Knowles said her son was desperate for help: “The first thing you think you say (to someone struggling with their mental health) is to reach out, but that’s what he did. We contacted them and what did they do? Nothing.”
Pearson was an only child and lived with his mother, who described him as “the most caring, loving, kind person, with a heart of gold who would do anything for anyone.”
“That’s what’s so tragic,” she said. “When he himself needed that help, he was sorely failed and abandoned.”
An inquest into Pearson’s death is expected to take place in February. A fundraising page has been set up to help pay for his funeral.
Chris Barben, the executive medical director of Blackpool NHS Trust, said: “This was and remains a deeply distressing incident for everyone involved and our thoughts are firmly with Jamie’s family and all they have gone through and continue to go through after giving him this have lost. way.”
Barben said the hospital was investigating the circumstances of the death in addition to the coroner’s process and that “it does not feel right to set this aside… and comment or provide further details.”
“I am sorry if this feels like we are not sharing the information we have and I would like to reassure these family and Jamie’s friends that we are cooperating fully with the coronial process and are hopeful that the outcome will provide them with the information. they need it.”