Michael and Irina Andriychuk say their daughter had a hard time getting medical help
The parents of a woman who lived in Dartmouth, N.S., say that their daughter died after being turned away from a mental-health clinic. They want to know why it was so hard for her to get help.
Yuliya Andriychuk, who was 32, died of hypothermia outside in a neighborhood near the Woodlawn Library in November. Her parents say that her appointment at the clinic had been canceled, so she had to stay outside.
Michael Andriychuk, Yuliya’s father, told CBC News, “The mental health system is to blame for the death of our daughter.”
Michael and his wife, Irina, say that a lack of staff has made it hard for their daughter to get consistent mental health care over the past few years.
People say that she got good care sometimes, but in the weeks before she died, she was ignored.
‘They lost her
The Andriychuks say that in 2000, their family moved from Latvia to Canada. People say that Yuliya went to high school in Halifax and came back to the area after going to college outside of the province.
Her parents say that she is pretty, smart, and has a bright future ahead of her. She liked to write, paint, and go fishing, and she was in her last year at Dalhousie University, where she was studying psychology.
“Whatever my daughter did, she did it to the fullest,” says her father.
Yulia had been depressed since 2020 as well. They say that when her mental health got worse, she got different kinds of care.
They say that at first, it was hard for her to get care. For their daughter, it was so hard to get help that they wrote to the health minister at the time.
She was finally taken to the hospital, and in the three years before she died, she had three long stays there.
People say that Yuliya was not watched during her second stay in 2021, and she was able to leave the hospital.
She wore only her socks when she left the Abbie J. Lane Memorial building in Halifax, crossed the bridge to Dartmouth, and got home at 4 a.m.
Irina says, “They lost her.” “What happened to us really shocked us.”
During the same stay, her father says that when he brought Yuliya back to the hospital after a weekend away, another patient was in her bed.
The Andriychuks say that Yuliya’s mental health got better after she got a lot of help.
People say she went to the hospital for help because she was having trouble in the weeks before she died. They say she had to wait three days to see a specialist.
The Andriychuks say that Yuliya was sent home instead of being kept for long-term care.
Two weeks later, when she went to the Dartmouth mental health clinic for an appointment, she was told that it had been canceled.
Yuliya died later that night.
“What is the point?” Michael Andriychuk says “The lack of people to work. Everyone is aware of it.”
More workers neede
In October, the most recent month for which data is available, 33% of full-time psychologist jobs at the health authority were unfilled.
It was 34% for full-time clinical therapist jobs, which is up from 22% in October 2020.
Nova Scotia Health says that the term “clinical therapist” can refer to a number of different jobs, such as occupational therapists, social workers, counseling therapists, or masters-level psychologists.
Dana Pulsifer, the senior director of the Mental Health and Addictions Program at Nova Scotia Health, says that because of privacy rules, they can’t talk about specific cases. However, when things like this happen, the health authority does conduct internal reviews.
But she says that the last few years have been “a bit harder, like everywhere else in health care.”
Pulsifer says that running with so few people is hard, but the department has found ways to keep giving good care to those who need it.
She says, “We make changes very quickly.” “Because we work as a sort of all-around, multidisciplinary team.”
Pulsifer also says that she doesn’t know of any mental health clinic appointments that have been canceled due to a lack of staff.
She says that the vacancies are just one of the problems the health authority faces when “trying to provide good treatments, support, and services based on good evidence in a timely manner.”
Dr. Andrew Harris, the senior medical director for mental health and addictions, says that the health authority has recently been able to hire some mental health professionals.
He says that they have hired a number of psychiatrists who are now starting to work in areas of the province that need more help.
Harris says that he wants the people of Nova Scotia to know that everyone who works for the health authority cares about the people they help.
“The staff, the doctors, the clinicians, and all the other people who work in health care are all very passionate and caring about what they do,” he says.
“If they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t be in this business.”
Still, the Andriychuks aren’t happy with the level of service they’re getting now. They say that their daughter would still be alive if she had gotten the right care when she needed it.
Her mother said, “She wanted to live, and she had a lot of plans.” “She didn’t get help.”
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