Suicide at Calgary hospital shows need for transparency, mental health advocates say

Mental health advocates are raising questions after a psychiatric patient at the Peter Lougheed Centre died by suicide last month.

The inpatient jumped from an upper-level storey of a parking garage at the facility on July 25.

"I was shocked,"said psychiatrist Dr. Safeer Khan. "It was a big tragedy."

Khan did not know the patient, and does not speak on behalf of Alberta Health Services (AHS), but he says the tragedy touched him.

In 2006, Khan briefly treated inpatient Diana Mitsuko Yano, 44, before she took her life in the same way.

Khan calls that incident "horrible."

Apublic fatality inquiryfollowed that incident and found thatmentally ill patients need to be better tracked, among other recommendations.

Review underway

AHS officials have not said whether the hospitalmade any changes recommended in the inquiry report, which came out in 2009.

Nor has AHS commented on last month's death, citing patient confidentiality.

But in a statement to CBC News, AHS says itwill "review all aspects of the events leading up to the tragedy."

In-hospitalsuicides"are things we need to talk aboutto stimulate change," says Rick Lundy, founder of the Open Arms Patient Advocacy Society.

"For [AHS] to say, 'We're not talking about these things,' just sweeps it under the carpet."

Angelica Martin,also with the society, says AHS should offer greatertransparency about what decisions were made at the hospital leading up to the patient's death.

"[To] understand what steps currently are in place. What is the procedure in terms of determining, for a case like this, if the person is fit and safe to travel out in the community by themselves outside of the unit."

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