A PhD student from Stockport died after jumping from a bridge into a river just half-an-hour after being discharged from a hospital stay for her mental health, an inquest into her death heard.
Emily Miller, 23, from Stockport, had serious mental health problems including psychosis. The academically gifted post-graduate was studying at York University, and had been sectioned several times between March 2019 and October 2020 due to ongoing psychological problems including an emotionally unstable personality disorder, depression and anxiety.
The sections came after near lifelong struggles with mental health, with Emily first being referred to mental health teams for anxiety at the age of 10.
Matthew Houghton, a nurse consultant at the psychiatric hospital, said that when Emily was first admitted in March 2020, at the start of the Covid outbreak, she was “quite frightened and scared”.
She had been seeing a psychiatrist and an occupational therapist before being discharged in April last year, only to be re-admitted in May. She was discharged again a week later – part of a pattern of short-term admissions in the run-up to her death.
Although Emily’s fears around the coronavirus “seemed to be wavering”, after a negative Covid swab she “just broke down in tears”.
Emily was “quasi psychotic” and “very anxious” about starting a new job, but had a masters degree from university and was described as “very bright”.
The nurse then told of Emily’s reaction to the news that she was being discharged, saying she was “unhappy” at the discharge meeting on October 30 and refused to take her medication with her, saying she had plenty at home.
“I think she was unhappy to be leaving [the hospital],” said Mr Houghton.
“She was quite angry with the decision [to discharge her].”
Mental health nurse Alison McGrath said she was “concerned” at “how somebody could leave a hospital ward and end up in a river in such a short space of time”
Full story here
Source: Manchester Evening News, 27th August 2021
CHARM 