B.C.’s advocate for children and youth says she needs access to an internal B.C. Children’s Hospital review of a North Vancouver teen’s death in order to answer troubling questions connected to the case.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the province’s representative for children and youth, said the circumstances around 17-year-old Alex Malamalatabua’s death July 31 are concerning enough to warrant a full investigation.
Malamalatabua, a teen who struggled with mental illness, spent the last five months of his life at B.C. Children’s Hospital. He was found dead on a construction site on hospital grounds at the beginning of August – possibly after falling from a height – a few days after getting a pass to go for a walk.
Turpel-Lafond said she wants to provide answers to the teen’s North Vancouver family about what happened and why, with the aim of preventing future tragedies.
“It’s very important to understand what happened to Alex,” said Turpel-Lafond, adding there are still many questions about why the system failed to help the teen or his family.
But so far, the children’s representative says the hospital has refused to release the internal report to her, on the grounds that staff took part in the review with the understanding it would not be released, as set out under the B.C. Evidence Act. Turpel-Lafond added so far the provincial ministry of health has also shut down attempts by her office to get the review.
Turpel-Lafond said that’s a concern to her. “There’s a young person who died in a situation that indicates he may have been in some distress,” she said.
Turpel-Lafond said she has done previous investigations where a hospital waived the right to keep an internal review secret, in the wider public interest. “Why do a review internally that nobody will see?” she said. “I don’t want to face barriers that are essentially bureaucratic.”
Turpel-Lafond said she has a responsibility to understand what happened to Alex. “I have a public accountability role. I have to know what happened,” she said. “I can’t just say, ‘It’s all good here. Move along.’”
Alex was taken to Children’s Hospital last spring, shortly after a crisis in which he was rescued after spending 36 hours in the North Shore backcountry.
For the next five months, the teen lived in the adolescent mental health unit at the hospital, said Turpel-Lafond, after staff were unable to find a community placement with appropriate resources to look after his complex needs.
Turpel-Lafond said she has questions about why the family did not receive adequate help before the situation reached a crisis and why there was no appropriate community setting available. Too often, she said, families of children and teens with mental health needs feel “ashamed and blamed” when they ask for help.
But getting a mental health diagnosis shouldn’t mean teens can’t live in their communities, said Turpel-Lafond. She said she’s also concerned that Alex had not been in school for up to three years before he died.
“If your child is experiencing a mental health crisis, you need support over a period of years,” she said. “You need a plan. Not that they live in a hospital.”
“I know the family wanted support for their son,” she said. “Community members of the North Shore would have wanted support for their son.”
A coroner’s report into Malamalatabua’s death has not been completed yet.
Sandra MacKay, a spokeswoman for the provincial health services authority, said in a statement the law precludes the hospital from sharing the report. That’s so doctors and hospital staff can “freely share what they know without fear of retribution...”
A similar statement regarding legal obligations to staff was provided by the ministry of health.
Turpel-Lafond said she’s calling on both the health minister and the premier to ensure she gets the report. “I’d like that to be reconsidered,” she said.
