24-year-old Makalie Owens died in Melbourne mental health unit
A grieving mother is demanding answers after her 24-year-old daughter died by suicide inside a Melbourne mental health facility this week. Aboriginal woman Makalie Owens-Watts took herself to St Vincents hospital to get help. Her mum Sharon says the hospital failed its duty of care to keep her daughter safe. A warning to Aboriginal and Torres strait islanders viewers, this story contains images of someone who has died.
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00:00 McKaylee Owens-Watts wanted to become a lawyer and was meant to graduate from her arts degree
00:06 this year.
00:07 But her mum Sharon says her daughter will never get to live out her dream because the
00:12 health system failed her.
00:13 It's the most painful thing in the whole world to lose someone that you love and care about.
00:21 The 24-year-old told her mum she was feeling unwell and took herself to St Vincent's Hospital
00:26 after work last week to get help.
00:28 McKaylee told staff she was having suicidal thoughts, was given a sedative and left in
00:33 a room for more than half an hour.
00:35 Nurses tried to resuscitate her but her life support was turned off on Monday.
00:41 It's just unthinkable.
00:43 They're accountable, they had a duty of care and they failed my daughter and now we don't
00:48 have a daughter, we don't have a sister, we don't have a friend.
00:54 Sharon says her daughter was left unsupervised for too long and is demanding answers from
01:00 the hospital.
01:01 She's Indigenous, she's under 25, we have the highest suicide rates in the world, in
01:07 Australia.
01:10 She was asking for help, she never got the help that she needed.
01:15 What a terrible and tragic incident has occurred here, it's deeply sad, clearly deeply distressing
01:21 for the young woman's family.
01:23 Suicides were at a four year high in Victoria in 2023 and data shows four people died by
01:30 suicide in inpatient facilities last financial year.
01:34 St Vincent's says it offers its sincere condolences to McKaylee's family and it's reported the
01:39 matter to the relevant authorities.
01:41 There will be the appropriate investigative work done, particularly via the coroner.
01:48 Sharon says she hopes lessons are learnt from her daughter's death.
01:51 I don't think I will ever recover from losing my girl but I just want no other family to
01:58 go through what we've gone through.
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