Pain, suffering and eventually suicide

By Letter to the Editor on October 7, 2019.

Re: “Semi-colon tattoos symbolizing a crucial pause,” Sept. 11

On Sept. 10 my wife and I returned from a trip to Calgary. The purpose of the trip was to arrange cremation procedures for our 38-year-old son, who intentionally killed himself using prescription drugs he had been taking for a number of years.

The following day the Medicine Hat News carried two pieces about suicide awareness and prevention. Our son’s death, while an extreme shock, was not unexpected and is why we contacted the Medicine Hat Police Service not long after he drove away. His last words were “I’m not coming back.” Cellphone calls were never picked up.

The RCMP found him in his car along the highway near Lake Louise on Sept. 6.

I’ve been reading articles in various media about suicide prevention/intervention for a long time and have yet to see stories about one of the biggest obstacles for our society to deal with this nation-wide problem.

Our son suffered for years with chronic and debilitating spinal pain. It eventually led to him having difficulty functioning on a day-to-day basis and unable to maintain the business he was operating. Attempts to get spine surgery for him were met with stonewalling and obstruction. His only option was medical marijuana and prescription medication. After a period of time their effectiveness became increasingly reduced, his only recourse was to increase the amount of consumption.

We as parents were unable to help, attempts to intervene were met with the line, “since your son is an adult, privacy laws in Alberta prevent us from releasing information or providing records about his health care etc.” The “cover your arse” mentality is well and strong in all aspects of government and medical world and will never be overcome.

We were stymied by this bureaucratic boondoggle to possibly change to course our son’s future. A scheduled operation would have provided hope for recovery. With his death the business Something Techy is now defunct. Rhys would have been 39-years-old at the end of October.

Len Jalbert

Medicine Hat

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