Bereaved mothers call for urgent action to fix mental health services
Kirsty Scott and Mary Gould were among the group of campaigners who have been backed by Melanie Leahy, who led a 10-year campaign for a public inquiry into more thnan 2,000 mental health-related deaths in Essex between 2000 and 2023.
Professor Phil Scraton also backed the families during the meeting hosted by New Script for Mental Health, a grassroots mental health rights movement.
Ms Leahy's son Matthew, 20, died in 2012 while a patient at a mental health facility, and described more than a decade of 'fighting for the truth'.
She said she has been in contact with the families from Northern Ireland for several months thanks to social media highlighting their campaign.
'What I need to say is whether you're a mum or a dad, you've got kids or you've got elderly parents, at some stage you're going to come across the mental health system, we're here and we've been failed by it,' she told the PA news agency.
'We're not standing here just to get some notoriety, we're here to try and change the system that is failing whether it is kids with special education needs (SEN), autism, ADHD.
'If whatever I am doing in the UK can make some change or a ripple over here then I am going to carry on.
'The system failed me in 2012, we're three bereaved mothers who are united, and there are 30,000 more behind us.
'We will somehow carry on and bring about the change that is needed, but it is hard and we need governments to stand up and the whole country needs to unite to bring about the changes.
'These mums ain't going anywhere, we've got so many angels behind us now that are pushing for this change.'
Ms Gould, a midwife from Ballymena welcomed the support, and the inclusion of a photo of her son Conall in a montage displayed at the Lampard Inquiry which concluded earlier this year.
The 21-year-old died in 2017 during a struggle with mental health.
She described the standards of care within mental health as 'atrocious', and said she feels that those who speak out 'have our voices silenced by a system unwilling to acknowledge the breadth of this crisis'.
Ms Scott said they are determined to ensure lasting change.
Her son William was diagnosed at the age of 19 with autism after what she termed a '15-year battle' including misdiagnosis. He died of an accidental drugs overdose.
'There is not one lesson being learned, all the promises, all the inquiries you go through, people saying sorry, not one word has meant anything because nothing has changed, if anything the mental health system in this country has got worse,' she said.
'I have battled for the last 12 years since my son died, and I can honestly say it has got worse.'
She added: 'My story was a perfect storm, but the problem is my perfect storm is also a lot of other people's story because there are too many perfect storms waiting to happen.'
Campaign organiser Sara Boyce said Northern Ireland families look forward to learning from the hard-won experience of the Essex campaigners and believe those lessons must be urgently applied here.
' Families involved in New Script are united in their desire to ensure that the harm and loss they experienced because of health service failures should never happen to other families,' she said.
'Yet the sad reality is that lessons are not being learnt.
'First hand experiences of families, coupled with multiple investigations, inquiries, and reviews, all point to the abject failure of the Health and Social Care Service (HSC) leadership to learn from their mistakes and implement changes recommended.'
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