Suicidal teen urged mental health unit be ‘shut down’

A suicidal teenager revealed that staff “slept on shifts” and said the scandal-hit mental health hospital she was being held in should be “shut down” in a note she wrote before her death, an inquest has heard.

- REBECCA THOMAS

Ruth Szymankiewicz, 14, died on 14 February 2022 after she was left alone at Huntercombe Hospital, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, despite requiring constant one-to-one observation, Buckinghamshire Coroner's Court was told.

In the 15 minutes she was left alone, Ruth, who had an eating disorder, made her way to her room, where she self-harmed. She was found and resuscitated before being transferred to hospital, but died two days later from a brain injury.

In a note written before she died, which was read aloud yesterday at the inquest into her death, Ruth said there was a lack of therapy at the hospital, which she said had an "unsafe number of staff".

It read: "I don't really know who this is really directed to... Huntercombe, it doesn't deserve a capital H. It is the shittest mental health institution you could get... the unsafe number of staff, how the place makes you worse, the staff literally sleep on their shifts. I don't want this to happen to any other patients ever. My suggestion is, shut this place down."