A grieving mum who lost her daughter to suicide at the age of 11 has blasted the Government on the day her girl would have received her Junior Cert results.
Fiona Tuomey hit out at the lack of support for young people in crisis.
In a tweet late on Friday she said: “Today my daughter Milly should be collecting her Junior Cert results. But she’s dead.
“Where is the €55million for mental health in 2019? It MIGHT help reduce Child and Adult Mental Health Service waiting lists and save lives.
“Jim Daly TD and Simon Harris TD please honour your 2018 budget commitment.”
Earlier this year Milly’s mum marked her daughter’s 15th birthday by launching Ireland’s first peer-to-peer suicide bereavement support group. Fiona, from Templeogue in South Dublin, chose the date to unveil the charity Healing Untold Grief Groups.
Milly posted on Instagram before her death in 2016 and revealed she had chosen the day she would die. Her family said it came like a “bolt out of the blue”.
Remembering her daughter, Fiona added: “Milly was extremely vivacious, loud, chatty and fun. She had a super relationship with her sister. When she entered a room you knew about it, she was that kind of girl.”
Milly’s family will join others in a march on the Dail next month to demand changes to Ireland’s mental health support system.
They will join Kathy Maguire, from Newbridge, Co Kildare, whose daughter Maxine was 25 when she died by suicide in February 2017.
Families affected by suicide want legislation brought in to make it easier for patients who have previously been in the mental health system to re-enter it.
They are also calling for a chief clinician to review each patient before discharge and new technology to simplify access to patients’ files.
Fiona added: “We are told in our HUGG suicide bereavement groups of our girls/women not being treated as needing urgent, emergency psychiatric intervention and then being left to die waiting.
“We are marching on October 16, at 1pm, Dail Eireann. Join us.
“With the largest ever budget for the HSE, €17billion, why are our children still waiting on the €55million allocated to mental health?”
- If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article please contact Samaritans helpline 116123, Aware helpline 1800 804848 or Pieta House on 1800 247247.
