In the lawsuit, the mother alleges negligence that led to the teenager’s death at the Health Sciences Center

WARNING: This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, there are resources at the end of this story.

The family of a teenager who committed suicide in a Winnipeg hospital is suing the city and some medical staff for alleged negligence that they believe led to or significantly contributed to the girl’s death.

Winnipeg’s regional health authority bears indirect responsibility for the suicide of a 17-year-old who committed suicide at the Health Sciences Center early last year, according to a lawsuit filed this week by the teenager’s mother.

The lawsuit states that the 17-year-old went to the hospital’s emergency department on March 6, 2023, after reporting suicidal thoughts to a school counselor.

The teen asked a triage nurse to admit her to the hospital’s mental health unit, but the nurse told her she needed to discuss the matter with her doctor, according to the lawsuit.

That nurse, identified only as Jane Doe, was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, the doctor, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, denied the request and the teen was moved to a room under the care of another unidentified nurse, called Brenda Doe in the lawsuit. She is also named as a defendant.

The lawsuit says the 17-year-old told her mother, who left so a nurse could talk to her daughter privately, that she was scolded by a nurse while they were alone in the room and that she was told he “had time to calm down and sent home,” the lawsuit reads.

He claims the teenager became agitated and told her mother she wanted to go to the toilet, where she tried to take her own life. On March 10, 2023, she was declared brain dead.

Nurse was disrespectful: lawsuit

The lawsuit says the teen suffered from a mental illness and had previously been admitted to a mental health unit for similar conditions.

It was found that the nurse did not defend the teenager and disregarded her mental condition, and that she and the doctor did not consult a child psychiatrist or other specialist on the matter.

The lawsuit alleges that they, like the triage nurse, were negligent and indirectly responsible for the death by failing to take an appropriate history of the child or confiscate her belongings.

They also did not consider her a suicide risk and did not inform the mother that she should not leave her daughter alone, she claims. The names of both nurses were not known to the plaintiff.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority was also negligent because it did not have a suicide prevention protocol in place by “failing to instruct its employees to ask for and confiscate” items such as belts, shoelaces, cords and computer cables, the lawsuit states.

The plaintiff is seeking more than $130,000 in damages for the teenager’s family, including funeral costs.

No responses to the lawsuit were filed, and none of the allegations contained in the lawsuit were examined in court.

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If you or someone you know is struggling, you can find help here:

If you’re worried that someone you know may be at risk of suicide, you should talk to them about it, advises the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. Here are some warning signs:

• Thoughts of suicide.
• Substance abuse.
• Vanity.
• Bow.
• I feel trapped.
• Hopelessness and helplessness.
• Withdrawal.
• Anger.
• Recklessness.
• Mood changes.