New Glasgow man died after being denied detox, family says

The family and friends of a New Glasgow man who died while seeking help for a hydromorphone drug addiction say they believe he killed himself because he was not allowed to enter the same detox unit as his partner. 

Joseph "Abe" Mackinnon died May 6 in hospital, at the age of 39. He had been addicted to hydromorphone for approximately 10 years, says his mother, Joyce Ross. 

Ross says her son was prescribed hydromorphone after he was injured on a construction site.

The addiction brought deep troubles to Mackinnon's life, and he tried unsuccessfully to quit.

Ross says her son sought help from addition services at the Pictou hospital several times, but found the treatment was not effective for him.

Hopeful about entering detox

Ross says this spring, Mackinnon became determined to get help in the detox unit at All Saints Hospital in Springhill. She says her son was convinced the hospital had a program that would work for him. 

"He was so excited. He really seemed to have that light in his eyes, he was going to get better," she said.  

Mackinnon's girlfriend, Danielle Noade, was also addicted to hydromorphone at the time. She's since stopped using.

Noade also contacted the same detox unit at the Springhill Hospital. 

"It was something we didn't want in our lives. We wanted to fix it, together," she said.  

Noade says she and Mackinnon received admission dates one day apart. They drove to Springhill together and Noade entered the unit first.

Calls for help

Mackinnon stayed in a motel, with his admission scheduled for the following day. That evening, Noade says staff casually asked her about her boyfriend. 

"I said, 'Actually, he's signed himself into here too,'" Noade says. "And the look on her face, and she said, 'He's not the person coming from New Glasgow tomorrow, is he?' And I said, 'Yes.' And she said, 'No, that can't happen.'" 

Noade says a staff person called Mackinnon in his motel room. After he learned he was not being admitted, he began to reach out to friends for support.

In a series of texts sent to a friend, Mackinnon's tone quickly changed from an optimistic outlook to several texts that read: "Help me. I can't do this. They're not giving me a bed." 

Mackinnon texted and called until his phone ran out of minutes. Later the same night, he took his own life in the motel room. 

No couples allowed

The Nova Scotia Health Authority extended its sympathies to Mackinnon's family, but Dr. Linda Courey, the senior director of mental health for the authority, said there is a reason for the practice of preventing couples from entering detox together. 

"There's a general consensus that this is something to be avoided," she said.

"In most cases, when couples or family members enter treatment at the same time on an inpatient withdrawal management unit, the relationship issues tend to get in the way of the focus on each individual's own recovery.

And so what has been observed over the years is that one or the other member of the couple — or both — will end up leaving against advice."

Courey said that if the second patient needed to be admitted to detox, he or she would be offered a place in a different facility.

Both Noade and Ross say they had no idea about the practice. Joyce Ross says she wishes staff had waited until the next morning to give her son the news in person. 

"So Tuesday night, I'm in bed and asleep and I get the call [from the RCMP]," she said. "I couldn't believe it because he was supposed to be down there for help."

"I hate to just blame it on them, but I just think they should have been more sensitive to the situation," she said.  "I know he had horrible anxiety. He wouldn't even go down the street alone." 

Ross and Noade also say they're concerned about people entering detox together, as they feel two addicts from the same town would be likely to know each other in Nova Scotia. 

"Pictou County is not that big of a place," said Ross. "I don't know how two people can go down from Pictou County and not be aware of each other."

Case-by-case decisions

Linda Courey explained it depends how well the two people know each other. 

"It's different if two people in a small town happen to know each other who are admitted at the same time. That's a different scenario than two people who are living together or are married or are father and son, mother and daughter," she said.

"Each relationship and each situation needs to be assessed carefully in terms of the potential impact of that relationship on each of the patients." 

She said there might even be scenarios where two people could be admitted who know each other well but the situation would have to be considered in advance.

She also said that staff are responsible for communicating respectfully and sensitively to everyone they interact with. 

Noade says she would like the health authority to examine what happened and she hopes it will not happen again. 

"I absolutely do not want to see it happen to anybody else. Their children, their boyfriends, their husbands, their daughters, their kids," she said. "Because it was not necessary, at all."