“I don’t want to wait for my daughter to die to denounce. At the end of the line, France Therien launched a real cry from the heart. She needs help saving her suicidal, drug-addicted, homeless 27-year-old daughter. For days, she has multiplied the steps, but comes up against the limits of the health system. “She would have died if I wasn’t there. I’m the one holding her back, she says, as the flood of words drowns in her sobs. I’m holding her with a rope so she doesn’t fall, but I’m burned. »
It’s been a long time that France Therien has the impression that we do not take her seriously. When her daughter was very young, she sought help for her daughter’s drug use problems. In vain. “It deteriorated to the point where she found herself in pimping networks,” she sighs.
During all these years, she suffered sexual and physical abuse. Occasionally, when it was too bad, she would come home, but soon she would become aggressive and run away again. “She is broken into pieces. One day in the hospital she was crying and confessed to me that she was not able to wake up without drugs because it hurt her too much, everything she went through. She no longer has a soul, no more self-esteem. It’s as if she was already dead inside. She just wants to kill herself because it’s too hard. »
Annick (fictitious name) made a first suicide attempt last April and, according to her mother, she then spent a week in the Haut-Richelieu hospital, without any real care. Last Wednesday, she made another attempt, while she was in a crack house of the Monteregie. A friend notified his mother, who took him back to the same hospital. “They knew it was his second attempt. I warned them that she had no home, not to let her out because she was going to kill herself. They told me: don’t worry Madam, we’re taking care of her, we won’t let her go out. »
Armed with this confidence, after spending 36 hours with her daughter in the hospital, she went home to rest. The next day, when she called the hospital to find out what she needed to bring her back, she was told that her daughter had been discharged.
“They let him go out without clothes or a place to go, with his backpack and a scribbled piece of paper”, scandalized Mme Therien.
Left to her own devices after leaving the hospital
On paper, that The duty could see, there is a referral for an addiction treatment center, a prescription for antidepressants and antipsychotics, and a date for an appointment with a psychiatrist in November.
But Annick, who lived down the street, didn’t follow the plan. And she didn’t go back to her mother. She had no means to do so since she lives more than two hours away and she had not been notified when she was discharged.
In panic, M.me Therien contacted the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu police who took steps to find her. They confirmed this information to To have to Friday. It was finally an acquaintance who contacted him the next day. Her daughter was in St-Jérôme. She was completely addicted to crack and fentanyl, to the point where “she lost consciousness and was stiff-necked,” says the mother.
The CISSS de la Montérégie-Centre, of which the Haut-Richelieu Hospital is a part, did not want to answer the questions of the To have to regarding the care that was provided to Annick, even though she had signed an authorization for the journalist to have access to her medical file. Their response is limited to general interventions with people at risk of suicide. “In a hospital context, the level of risk is notably assessed by the doctor. If the evaluation allows a discharge, a follow-up or referrals to resources are systematically offered according to the needs of the person and their consent,” indicates the communications office.
Weaning without help
On Sunday, France Therien brought her daughter home, where she undertook to wean her. Since then, she has been trying to find help.
“Hospitals don’t take her anymore, I’m not able to find a place in therapy until she’s weaned off. I call everywhere, I spend my time on the phone, but I’m always sent from one place to another, it’s never the right postal code, or it takes such paper, such card, proof of vaccination . But she is itinerant, she has no papers. »
Weaning is difficult. The nights are short. ” She shake, I change the sheets all the time because they are all wet. This isn’t the first time I’ve had her go through withdrawal, I know she’s going to get aggressive when she wants drugs. She wants to get out of it, she cries, but the consumption is stronger. »
Friday morning, M.me Therien took her daughter to another hospital. “Withdrawal is too difficult without medication,” she says. She had already seen it coming, two days earlier, during the interview at To have to. “If it’s not okay, I’ll call the ambulance and the cycle will start again…”