I Tried To Get Help For My Suicidal Daughter More Than #100 Times - But They Called Her a Waste Of Space.

A desperate mum begged for help more than 100 times over nine days before her daughter killed herself.

Mandy Park’s distraught pleas were not only ignored by a mental health worker but ridiculed.

Her daughter Hannah Groves was labelled an "attention seeker" and a "f***ing waste of space"

Hours later she was found dead at home, aged 20.

Hannah had made numerous suicide attempts in the nine days before her death yet was repeatedly denied admission to hospital.

Heartbroken Mandy, 47, was ­physically sick when she heard the comments about Hannah, who was a constant danger to herself.

Mandy said: "It beggars belief that ­anyone could treat another human that way"

"Hannah changed overnight from a happy young ­woman to a ­totally different person. She was my world"

"I love and miss her. She had so much to live for and to give. If she’d got the right treatment she’d still be here"

Tragic Hannah is just one victim in a growing mental health crisis among women as female suicide rates hit a ten-year high.

In the UK the number of ­women taking their own lives has grown steadily since 2011.

But while mental health issues make up 23 per cent of contact with the NHS, it received only 13 per cent of the funding.

And since 2011 the number of beds for mental health patients has fallen by 8 per cent.

Last month Mandy, a former ­support worker for deaf children, was awarded £260,000 in an ­out-of-court medical negligence settlement from Southern Health Trust.

It admitted grieving Mandy had been a “secondary victim” of its ­failings after she developed 
post-traumatic stress ­disorder and spent six weeks in a ­specialist mental health facility.

She has ­contemplated ­suicide too but could not leave her son Patrick, 21, without a mum.

Mandy said: "Finding Hannah’s body was the worst moment of my life. I have flashbacks every day. It’s like a film on a constant loop"

"The effects of these ­failings have been catastrophic. I’m ­terrified it will happen to someone else’s child"

Hannah, a straight-A student studying French at university, had no mental health ­problems until October 2012.

Mandy believes she suffered a sudden onset of psychosis but this was not diagnosed because she was not ­properly assessed.

On the night she got ill, Mandy dropped Hannah at her boyfriend’s and later had a ­panicked call from him.

She picked up her daughter but on the trip home Hannah ­repeatedly tried to jump from the ­moving car. She also attempted to run into oncoming traffic.

Mandy said: "She was such a sweet, gentle person. But it was like she was possessed"

"Her voice had changed and she was speaking in a monotone"

"She didn’t smoke but she would pace the floor, chain-smoking and ­staring into space. I was terrified of my own girl. She kept saying she felt numb"

Mandy took Hannah to A&E where the medical staff referred her to the trust’s mental health crisis team.

But staff from the trust assessed Hannah and decided she did not meet the ­criteria for a bed in Antelope House, in her home town Southampton.

Over the next week she ­repeatedly attempted suicide. Mandy took her to ­hospital, to her GP and even to an out of area mental heath facility trying to get help.

Police and paramedics regularly attended the family home and she begged mental health workers to intervene, in vain.

Mandy said: "One time she had a scarf round her neck and I had to hold her down. I spent hours on the phone to the mental health team but they would sigh as soon as I told them who I was.

"Hannah even got hold of the phone herself and was repeatedly telling them she was going to kill herself but they did nothing"

Three days before her death, Hannah was taken to A&E once more but was sent home again by the mental health trust.

Mandy said: "Hannah fell on the floor in a heap. It was heartbreaking. She knew she needed help"

The evening before Hannah’s death, on October 22, 2012, her boyfriend brought her orange roses and she wrote the words “I’m still alive” on a chalkboard. Mandy was ecstatic.

She ­recalled: "I thought I was getting her back" But the next day Mandy had to call the police after Hannah threatened to kill her family. She was arrested under the Mental Health Act.

Again staff at Antelope House refused to admit her after a social worker told the police detention officer she was a "f***ing waste of space" an "attention seeker"

Just hours later, Mandy found her daughter’s body. She had left her home for a matter of minutes to call the crisis team, begging for help.

Mandy said. "At the hospital I stood there while they did CPR. Then they said there was nothing more they could do. I fell on the floor, screaming the place down"

Mandy called on medical ­negligence solicitor Nick Fairweather to fight for justice in her daughter’s memory.

The Health Care Professions Council ruled the insults about Hannah were ­"undoubtedly spoken" but failed to prove the case against a named social ­worker.

Coroner Keith Wiseman ­delivered a narrative verdict at her inquest and ruled the trust had "not adequately identified" the risks to Hannah.

Mandy said: "It’s the little things I miss most, like watching our favourite programme Sex and the City with a bottle of wine. We really were best friends.

"Everyone says I did ­everything I could but there are times when the guilt kicks in. I wonder if I should’ve just handcuffed us both to Antelope House"

"It’s 2017 but our attitude to mental health beggars belief – especially from those supposedly trained in this field.

"A lot of people do judge, and say, ‘Snap out of it.’ But no one would ever tell you to snap out of it if you had cancer. Something has to change"

Julie Dawes, interim chief ­executive of Southern Health said: "I apologise again on behalf of the trust for letting Miss Groves down in 2012 and I send my condolences to her family"