After hearing the heartbreak of family and friends and mixed testimony from clinicians and experts, the five-person jury assigned to the BC Coroners Inquest into the death of Elliot Eurchuk has produced seven recommendations.
The inquest started June 17, with the goal to examine the circumstances surrounding the overdose death of 16-year-old Elliot Eurchuk, who was found unresponsive with a fatal mixture of drugs in his system on April 20, 2018 in his family’s Oak Bay home, located just outside Victoria.
Eurchuk’s parents hoped to see changes to medical privacy laws, which they felt were detrimental to their son’s treatment leading up to his death.
READ ALSO: VIDEO: Oak Bay mom describes finding son ‘gone’ on first day of inquest into overdose death
The jury’s recommendations are as follows:
To the Minister of Education:
- Develop processes for early detection of mental health and substance use disorders within the schools.
- Develop and implement a plan to transition youth from acute care and addiction treatment facilities to the schools.
- Provide education to students. parents or guardians. teachers and administrators on mental health and substance use disorders.
To the Minister of Health:
- Develop and implement a plan to transition youth from health care facilities back to community based services.
- Streamline and coordinate access to available youth residential substance use disorder treatment beds and youth mental health care beds within British Columbia.
- Provide youth with more long term residential substance use disorder treatment facilities throughout British Columbia.
To the CEO of Island Health:
- Provide youth with long term residential substance use disorder treatment facilities to be located on Vancouver Island.
nina.grossman@blackpress.caLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
