Grieving families back B.C. Liberal's bill for more suicide prevention tools

A B.C. Liberal MLA has put forward a private member's bill aimed at helping prevent suicides.

Elenore Sturko, a former RCMP officer who is now the Liberal critic for mental health and addictions, says her proposed amendment to the province's Mental Health Act fills a gap in the system by ensuring family members or others who know a patient's history are contacted about any decision to certify the patient under the Mental Health Act.

The proposed amendment would require doctors and nurse practitioners to seek additional information and context before releasing someone that they have reasonable grounds to believe is a harm to themselves or others. Doctors and nurse practitioners would have to reach out to someone with close knowledge of the patient's situation, be it a family member or a complainant.

"Doctors and nurse practitioners are doing what they can with the tools they have," Sturko said at a Wednesday news conference. "I'm trying to add another tool."

Sturko was joined by family members of Nicole Chan and Todd Marr, both of whom took their own lives. Both went to hospitals before their deaths but were released.

Chan was a Vancouver Police Department constable who died by suicide during a mental health crisis following relationships with two senior Vancouver police officers.

She was distraught when she was taken to hospital by fellow police officers in January 2019, but doctors refused to admit her involuntarily — despite the urging of several first responders who knew her. She took her life hours after being sent home.

Marr's mother, Lorraine, fought through tears as she spoke about her son's experience in hospital, saying she wishes someone had asked her about what was going on in her son's life.

"He talked to the doctors. They said there was nothing they could do for him except put him in a padded room, give him a bus ticket the next morning, send him home or wherever," she said. "The next morning, he took his life."

Sturko was one of the officers who responded to Marr's call before he jumped to his death. She said it still affects her to this day.

It's rare for a private member's bills to be debated in the legislature, let alone passed, but the B.C. Liberals hope this will be an exception as it could save lives.

Premier David Eby spoke of the need to "move carefully." 

"Certainly, if there's any opportunity for us to improve the information that's available to physicians or nurses when they're making that incredibly difficult decision about whether or not to hospitalize someone who is in crisis, we're willing to look at that," Eby said Wednesday.

"These are obviously very complicated things. They often have unintended consequences, so we would want to move carefully."

Green Party MLA Adam Olsen said his party would like to see the B.C. NDP call the bill for debate.