Camden New Journal - News: Metally ill student

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Camden New Journal - by SIMON WROE
Published: 25 October 2007

Mentally ill student’s death ‘due to funding’

MENTAL health patients have blamed funding cuts for the death of an Ethiopian refugee who was allowed to leave a Hampstead psychiatric ward.
Art student Henock Legesse, 32, was found dead at his home in Marsden Street, Queen’s Crescent, on October 3.
It is believed Mr Legesse hanged himself, although an inquest has been opened at St Pancras Coroner’s Court to determine the cause of death.
Mr Legesse, who fled Addis Ababa in 1993, was a formal patient at the Grove Centre, adjacent to the main building of the Royal Free hospital and managed by the Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust.
But a source inside the ward claimed Mr Legesse was known to be a high-risk patient and had only been allowed on home leave because of a shortage of beds, after funding cuts.
“I knew him to speak to him, but he was very down,” the source said.
“He often had his head in his hands. He should not have been let out on leave – they knew he was suicidal. They’ve cut 16 beds in this ward alone. The place is understaffed and badly run.”
A spokeswoman for the Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust said: “The care trust cannot comment on individual patients, but would never discharge a patient because of a shortage of beds.
“The needs of individual patients would always be the priority.”

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