Beilby Poulden Costello is currently at the forefront of litigation involving failures in the New South Wales health system in the care and treatment of mentally ill persons.
There has been a lot of publicity of late about the mental health system in New South Wales. There have been a number of Government reports and inquiries seeking to look at better ways to manage the mentally ill.
We are currently involved in a number of matters where the quality of care provided to mentally ill persons is being challenged. From the point of view a personal injury lawyer, there are two common types of cases where failures in the system may result in an entitlement to compensation for both mentally ill persons and their family. We are currently dealing with cases which involve:
1. Persons who have presented themselves to a mental health institution or have been scheduled to an institution and then have either not being properly cared for or discharged in circumstances where further institutionalisation or follow up care should have been provided;
2. As a result of the failures in the provision of care, the clients who inflict self harm and tragically in some cases commit suicide;
3. Persons who have been improperly released from care or inadequately treated and have then gone on to harm others.
We have recently been able to assist the family of a young man who committed suicide following his release from the psychiatric ward of a major regional hospital in circumstances where he had been committed by way of schedule. That schedule should have prevented his departing. The evidence we were able to gather established that he should not have been entitled to discharge himself and that he ought to have been reviewed and treated before being allowed to return to the community.
The horrible result in this young man’s case is that he committed suicide resulting in enormous anguish and trauma for his family.
While investigating his case we sought and obtained records from the Health Department and other Government institutions looking at the incidents of suicide in New South Wales. We researched the Sentinel Events Review Committee which reports annually on the incidents of suicide and examines the individual cases. Unfortunately for our client and his family he has become one of those statistics. We were also able to obtain documents including reports of select committees on mental health which contained recommendations for the better provision of mental health care in New South Wales.
These documents and the failure to comply with varying recommendations were enough for us to be able to recover a substantial sum of damages for the family by way of a settlement before the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
While it was important to the family to receive financial compensation for their loss it was just as important for them to be able to have the satisfaction and closure of knowing that what occurred could have been prevented but for the negligence of the health care providers. There is often a lot of guilt when suicide occurs.
We continue to be involved in disputes concerning the mental health system and would welcome enquiries from persons and their families. All enquiries are, of course, kept in the strictest confidence. We are happy to have an initial meeting and conduct some preliminary enquiries on the basis that fees will only become payable if the matter ultimately results in the successful recovery of compensation.
One of the great benefits we have gained from our considerable exposure to this type of law is our access to a vast amount of documentation and reports. We also have access to a number of the leading experts in this area of the law who can provide support in appropriate cases and can provide guidance in helping us understand what is a very complex area.
We have, out of respect and confidence to the family, not mentioned the name of the person involved in the case we recently completed before the Supreme Court. We are unable to disclose particulars of the amount of compensation on the basis that there was a confidentiality clause in the Terms of Settlement approved by the Supreme Court.
By Courtenay Poulden
Publish Date: October 6, 2007