B.C. needs new mental health hospital, psychiatrist tells inquest into deaths of Prince Rupert family

A psychiatrist with British Columbia’s Northern Health authority has called for a new mental health hospital in B.C. in her testimony to an inquest into the deaths of a Prince Rupert family.

The coroner’s inquest has heard that Christopher Duong was suspected by police to have killed his wife Janet Nguyen, their two young sons and then himself on June 13, 2023, three days after he was detained under the Mental Health Act but then released a few hours later.

Dr. Barbara Kane was asked on Friday if resources at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital, where Duong was assessed, could have influenced the decision to release him, with inquest counsel Steven Liu saying the hearing had heard that the locked detention room at the hospital was “akin to torture.”

Liu questioned whether keeping someone under such conditions could damage a doctor-patient relationship, noting that the doctor who released Duong was also his long-term family physician. Kane said that was a judgment call and was “not easy.”

She said there was nowhere for general purpose hospitals in the north to send potentially “dangerous” people with severe, ongoing mental illness.

“They used to go to Riverview,” she said, referring to the psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam. B.C., that was closed in 2012. “We don’t have that anymore. So, they stay with us and it backs up the whole system.”

She said the difficulty transferring people meant she was “pretty sure that there are people who get discharged before they should. Because we don’t have the right services.”

The hearing in Burnaby, B.C., has heard that Duong was released after an assessment by a doctor at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital who was also his longtime family physician, and who found him to be “friendly and calm” at the time.

James Wale, a deputy director of child welfare with the Ministry for Children and Family Development, testified later Friday that given the information available to the ministry at time, “there is nothing that we saw that we would have done differently.”

A social worker previously told the hearing that he did not narrow a five-day window to contact the family to 24 hours after Duong’s apprehension, because of his belief that Duong was still in hospital, calling it a “big determinant.” Instead, the inquest heard, a social worker tried to call Nguyen on the day the family died at her parents’ home and was told they were napping.

Kane had said at the start of her testimony that safety plans for patients detained under the Mental Health Act normally aren’t done if they are subsequently released.

Asked for recommendations about psychiatric care, Kane said doctors “need a psychiatric hospital in B.C., a real psychiatric hospital,” adding that maybe the province needed “a couple of them.”

She also said there should be someone with psychiatric training in all or almost all emergency rooms.

Police apprehended Duong after he was found driving around Prince Rupert at 2 a.m., with Nguyen and their boys aged two and four, saying they had to keep driving or they would be killed in a “hit.”

Duong was known to police and rumoured to be involved in the drug trade, while a notice of civil claim filed by B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture in 2015 describes him as a “violent gang member and drug trafficker.”

But an RCMP officer told the inquest on Thursday there was no evidence that anyone else was involved in the deaths of the family, who were all found in bed together, with an electrical cord around Nguyen’s neck, cuts to Duong’s arms and legs, and the two boys arranged with teddy bears at their feet.

The officer said a video “last will and testament” was found on the couple’s phones.

A forensic pathologist said the boys had died of asphyxiation.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, support is available 24/7 by calling or texting 988, Canada’s national suicide prevention helpline.