A 17-year-old boy who committed suicide last year was being treated for paranoia induced by cannabis usage, an inquest has heard.
The mother of the boy, from south Dublin, told Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday that staff at St John of God Hospital in Stillorgan, Dublin, had told her her son's drug-induced paranoia would stop if he stopped smoking cannabis.
"Staff there told me that the paranoia was from smoking cannabis and if he stopped the paranoia would go away," she told the court.
A postmortem revealed the teenager had no drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of his death. He was discovered by his mother hanging in a shed in his grandfather's garden on September 20th, 2005.
He had recently spent six days as a patient at St John of God Hospital and was being treated as an out-patient at the hospital's Cluan Mhuire service at the time of his death.
The boy's mother expressed dissatisfaction in court at her son's treatment. "One morning, I rang Cluan Mhuire and asked to speak to a nurse because Craig had put his hand through a window. I asked, 'What do I do, I'm afraid?' The response was 'What do you want me to do about it?' They didn't seem to care," she told the inquest.
She added that the hospital never told the family the results of her son's blood or urine tests or about the treatment her son received in the six days he spent there. "There was no written communication to us as to what happened in those days."
A spokeswoman for the hospital said they could not comment on past or present patients as a matter of confidentiality.
A medical report sent in by the clinical director of Cluan Mhuire stated there were no indications the boy was suicidal. "At no point in our dealings with [the patient] did he indicate feelings of self-harm at the time he was admitted to St John of God or as an out-patient at Cluan Mhuire," Dr Siobhán Barry said in her written report. When contacted yesterday, Dr Barry said that no one from the hospital was invited to attend the inquest. "If there was a lesson to be learned, we would have liked to have been there to hear it," she said.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said the hospital indicated in their report the boy had been suffering from a "drug-induced psychosis".
The boy's mother told the inquest the family believed her son had got his life back on track and he had just started a college course in Dundrum, Co Dublin. "It looked like he'd turned himself around . . . My sorrow is that he must have been in utter torment and pain and I didn't even see it."
On the family's request, Dr Farrell said he would write to the hospital expressing their concerns.
"It's not going to change anything but I have a concern and I would like to think that other families might be spared from what we've had to go through. I'm not indicating blame, I'm just stating the facts," his mother said.
The inquest heard the teenager had never expressed to his family he wished to take his own life. "I don't believe he was in his sound mind . . . I don't think he meant to inflict this pain on his family," she said.
Dr Farrell recorded a verdict of self-inflicted death rather than suicide. "It appears he had been suffering from cannabis-induced psychosis. He had no history of self-harm," he said.