All she wants to do is scoop her daughter up, tell her she loves her, and when she’s healthy, take her home.
But one Fredericton mother knows that’s not possible right now, and fears what her daughter thinks of her – especially since she’s laid criminal charges against her “baby,” and essentially isn’t allowed to speak to her.
Brunswick News recently spoke with a woman it is identifying only as Janelle, in order to protect her 17-year-old daughter’s identity.
The story shared by Janelle, a personal support worker, is eerily familiar: a young, mentally ill patient taken to Fredericton’s Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital (DECH), assessed, and sent home, despite protests from a parent who vainly argued that their child needed help, and wasn’t safe to leave.
Twice in recent weeks, Janelle says, her daughter was assessed at the DECH and discharged.
Janelle says her daughter assaulted her twice during a manic episode. The only way to stop her daughter from being an ongoing danger to her much younger siblings, Janelle says police told her, was to lay criminal charges against her own child.
Because she followed that advice – a move Janelle says she now regrets, and wants reversed – a no-contact order was issued. That means that besides mental health appointments and meetings with social workers, Janelle cannot communicate with her daughter, and vice-versa.
Her daughter also can’t go home.
So all she knows, Janelle says, is that her mother had her charged with two crimes: two counts of assault with a weapon. One count came from her daughter throwing at a cup at her, Janelle says, and the other stemmed from her daughter hitting her leg with a fan.
While her daughter has now been admitted to the DECH, and is receiving psychiatric treatment, Janelle is outraged by what it took to get her the help she needs, and how she had basically no say in the decision-making process because of her daughter’s age.
“I can’t stop crying,” Janelle said. “When I’m at work, I’ve got to put my face on. Thankfully, my co-worker is my friend. On the way home from work, I’m just crying.
“I was thinking about Halloween. Because my daughter said a couple of weeks ago that she wanted her and her brother to wear connected outfits. And now she might not even be home.
“I was also thinking about my daughter not having any of her things. And she just went through a major crisis. She doesn’t have any of her items that make her calm … everything that’s in her room, that’s her home.
“She’s in the hospital and that is good, because she needs to be. But I want her to come home when she’s better.”
Janelle says she wants everyone to know that she loves her daughter dearly, and that she’s a good person who’s struggling with mental health.
“I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh she’s a monster because she assaulted her mother.’ She’s not. She’s a beautiful person who cares about other people, with a very big heart.”
Health network’s policies
Horizon Health Network says privacy laws prevent it from commenting on specific patients’ cases.
Knowing that, Brunswick News instead asked Horizon to outline its processes for assessing patients with mental health problems.
A statement attributed to Natasha Lemieux, the network’s vice-president of “community,” was sent.
“Horizon is deeply committed to ensuring that every patient who comes to an Emergency Department with mental health concerns receives the care and support they need, when they need it most,” Lemieux’s statement read.
“We understand how vulnerable these moments can be, and our services are designed to prioritize patient safety, well-being, and recovery.
“Each Horizon emergency department has designated mental health teams made up of highly skilled, compassionate clinicians, who are able to quickly respond to any situations 24/7 where a patient is experiencing serious mental illness.
“Here, members of the team, including psychiatrists, meet with the individual to discuss their situation, life and medical history while identifying any root causes, risks and recommending next steps to ensure the patient is cared for appropriately.
“While no two situations are exactly alike, next steps are tailored to the individual’s specific needs. Treatment options could include admission to an inpatient psychiatric unit, referral to residential treatment, or community-based outpatient services.
“In all circumstances, the team reviews each person’s unique circumstances, willingness to participate in treatment options and, where safety is a concern, the ability under legislation to provide treatment involuntarily under the Mental Health Act.
“In all circumstances where treatment is declined and involuntary treatment is not an option, Horizon is committed to partnering with individuals to provide information on treatment options and crisis services that can support patients and families should the individual reconsider engaging in treatment in the future.
“We know these situations can be challenging, especially for families and our teams are available to provide supportive therapeutic options for families as well.”
Mother’s story
Janelle speaks fondly of her daughter – the little girl who won community awards for organizing food drives for kids at school who were going hungry. Her efforts were featured in the Daily Gleaner, Janelle says.
But as that girl grew up, and after years of taking medication for other conditions, her manic episodes and marijuana use became more frequent.
And a couple of weeks ago, Janelle says, her daughter was “in a very depressive state.”
While she’d seen it before, “the manic behaviour this time was the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“So I saw that it was coming.”
What followed, Janelle says, was two days where her daughter couldn’t sleep, was speaking rapidly, and constantly pacing. Eventually, she became aggressive, and attacked her mom twice in one day.
Police and a Mobile Crisis Unit were called to their Fredericton-area home.
But after the police spoke to the teenager, Janelle says, “they were convinced … (that) they couldn’t take her (to hospital) because of her age, and (because) she was saying, ‘I’m not going to hurt anybody else, and I’m not going to hurt myself.’”
“That was enough to convince them, although she wasn’t stable. Her speech was extremely rapid. Some of the things she was saying didn’t make sense … yet it wasn’t enough for her to be taken to the hospital.”
The 17-year-old left home and, with her boyfriend, went to stay at a friend’s house, according to Janelle. But by the next morning, and after Janelle had called several places to see where her daughter was, no one knew. So she called the DECH to see if her daughter been admitted, and when she hadn’t, she called police, who confirmed they’d picked the girl up on suspicion of being drunk – which Janelle says didn’t turn out to be true.
Janelle says she was told that her daughter had been put in a holding cell, and that police would wait for her to sober up, and then bring her home.
“So later (on the same day that her daughter had been arrested, police) called me and told me that they had had to bring her up to the hospital – that she’d stripped naked in her cell and tried to hang herself with her pants.”
Soon after Janelle arrived at the hospital, she says she was told that her daughter had been placed on an involuntary 72-hour hold.
‘She’s good to go home’
But what Janelle didn’t realize was that her daughter could be released within that 72-hour period. And that’s exactly what happened – after less than a day.
Janelle says she was at work the next day when she got a call notifying her that her daughter was about to be discharged, even though “she was in the same state” as before: “completely messed up.”
“I’m arguing with (the doctor), and all he keeps saying is, ‘She’s fine. She’s good to go home.’”
Janelle says at the end of the conversation, the doctor’s explanation changed. He said there were no available beds.
“I asked him: is she safe, or are there no beds?”
Janelle says the doctor replied that the girl was “safe, and fine to come home.”
With her two younger kids at the house, Janelle says she was terrified of what might happen. She says she called Emergency Social Services for help, who told her that if the doctor said her daughter was safe to go home, she was safe to go home, “and if she becomes aggressive, or tries to hurt herself or anyone else … call the police.”
In an email, Fredericton Police Force spokesperson Megan Barker said she’d need time to gather information before commenting on this story, but noted that “it is a youth matter so we’ll be limited in what we can say for privacy reasons.”
Racing home early from work, Janelle says her daughter was “in the exact same state,” and that it seemed that if “I said the wrong thing, she could turn aggressive again.”
Calling some friends for “backup,” and having one take her younger children to their home, Janelle says she too eventually had to leave her home “because there was no getting her to listen, and I didn’t feel safe there.” She and her friends went to talk about “what the hell to try and do here.”
Also, her daughter’s boyfriend had arrived at the house, and Janelle says she knew he’d call her if something happened.
Eventually, Janelle and her friends decided to go back to her house, and call the police again.
After arguing with the police for over 90 minutes, who wouldn’t take her daughter “because she wasn’t, in the moment, … saying she was going to hurt anybody, or saying ‘I’m going to hurt myself,’” Janelle says they eventually agreed to take her back to the DECH.
But an officer warned Janelle that her daughter was likely to be released quickly again, and that the only way to get her the help that she needed was for her to be charged. That way, police could pick up the girl after she was discharged, be taken to a police holding cell, and a social worker would be assigned to her case.
Janelle agreed, thinking that was the best way forward.
Discharged again
But when her daughter was discharged – again, within 24 hours – Janelle says she had no place to go, and wasn’t picked up by police. And because she’d laid charges against her daughter, a no-contact order had been issued, preventing the two from communicating other than during mental health appointments for the 17-year-old, and appointments with social workers.
A social worker had made contact with her daughter, however.
Janelle thinks her daughter spent the night with a friend, and then went to Fredericton High School – not her school – the next morning, a Monday. Eventually, she was put in a cab and taken across the river to her usual school, Leo Hayes High School.
It wasn’t long before Janelle received an email from Leo Hayes saying her daughter was sitting in the driveway, and talking about not being able to go home.
The social worker, Janelle says, tried to work with her daughter to develop a plan about where she could stay. Eventually, the girl left the school and went to another friend’s house.
But that night, the daughter’s former employer called Janelle’s mother, saying the girl was sitting outside the business, “in a state, crying, hollering, asking for food.”
That’s when, Janelle says, her sick mother decided to take her granddaughter in for the night, and dropped her off at Leo Hayes the next morning. The grandmother had to go to work, and had been told a social worker would meet her granddaughter at the school.
“The school had no idea what to do with her, and they had no idea that the social worker was to supposed to meet with (her daughter),” Janelle says. “I don’t know what happened.
“The principal calls me, says ‘She’s not school ready,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, clearly.’”
Janelle’s mother returned to the school to collect her granddaughter, while Janelle called her daughter’s psychiatrist and told the receptionist what was going on. Learning that the psychiatrist was working a shift at the DECH, Janelle says she told her mother to head for the hospital immediately.
And that’s when things changed, Janelle says.
Her daughter was admitted, and now will get treatment at the DECH for up to 30 days.
In a supporting letter sent to Janelle, Dominic Leach, the Leo Hayes High School Learning Centre co-ordinator, corroborated Janelle’s story about what happened at the school.
He also wrote that the teenager endured a “difficult situation … in attempting to get services.”
“The police told her mother that unless she verbally said she was going to hurt herself or others, there was nothing they could do,” Leach wrote. “She was released from DECH twice, obviously exhibiting manic behaviour.
“We eventually reached her support services. She was given a choice of travelling to the centres in Miramichi or Saint John. She did ask to know more about the Saint John facility.
“After hearing more, she conceded to going, but the placement there was no longer available in that short period of time.”
Amidst everything, Janelle says she contacted Horizon’s Patient Representative Services to complain about what was happening.
Janelle says that during a phone call, she was asked to lay out her expectations.
“And I said that my expectations are that my daughter gets admitted, and gets the help that she needs. But I’m not done talking to them. This isn’t over. This is not OK at all.
“To be put in a position to not have any choice but to charge my daughter is not right.”