Drug overdose inquest pushed
‘It still doesn’t feel real, says mother, nearly three months after teen’s death
Almost three months after her teenage son’s accidental overdose death, dentist Rachel Staples returns to her Oak Bay home after work and still expects to hear her son say “hey.”
Staples grunts the word, recalling how her son would greet her in the late afternoons.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” she said.
Sixteen-year-old Elliot Eurchuk died from an illicit drug overdose on April 20, in the bedroom of his Oak Bay home. His parents say painkillers prescribed for preand post-surgery pain for sportsrelated injuries led to an addiction.
B.C.’s solicitor general is being asked to call a coroner’s inquest into the illicit opioid overdose death if the province’s chief coroner does not.
A Victoria law firm has asked chief coroner Lisa Lapointe to order an inquest into the teenager’s accidental opioid overdose death to prevent “dangerous practices and circumstances” from causing another death.
Victoria lawyer Michael Scherr, a managing partner at Pearlman Lindholm Law Corp., has also asked Solicitor General Mike Farnworth to compel the coroner to conduct an inquest if she decides not to order one.
Under the Coroners Act, the chief coroner may direct a coroner to hold an inquest if it’s in the public interest or if the death resulted from a dangerous practice or circumstance, and similar deaths could be prevented if recommendations were made to the public or an authority.
“Before she makes that decision, she will wait until all the investigative research has been completed, and all the necessary reports [such as autopsy and toxicology] are received,” said spokeswoman Barb McLintock.
The chief coroner will then review the file in detail and make a decision, she said.
“The family’s views are certainly taken into account in that review,” McLintock said.
If an inquest is ordered, it will be announced.
The Vancouver Island Health Authority says it, too, is waiting for the results of the coroner’s investigation to fully inform the final recommendations from its “quality review” involving the doctors, nurses and other health professionals involved in Elliot’s care.
“We will share any actions coming out of the review with Elliot’s parents first, and we will wait for their direction on any public sharing of those action items,” said Island Health spokeswoman Meribeth Burton in an email.
Staples and her husband, Brock Eurchuk, want the full report made public, so that mistakes can be identified and similar deaths prevented. Staples said a formal report is needed if policies and practices and laws are to be amended and improved.
The parents, both of whom work, felt it was necessary to hire a lawyer to help the family seek a coroners inquest and navigate the bureaucracy around their son’s death. They have two other children.
“It’s overwhelming just to get out of bed most days,” Staples said.
Scherr has told the province’s chief coroner that the community needs to be satisfied that Elliot’s death and similar overdose deaths will not be allowed to silently continue without an inquiry into the underlying causes.
The teen’s parents want the health-care system’s prescribing of highly addictive opioids to teens reviewed in the context of exploring less addictive options.
The couple also want the B.C. Infants Act reviewed and amended. The act says anyone under the age of 19 can consent to their own medical care if a healthcare provider agrees with the treatment and assesses the patient as competent to understand the risks and benefits.
The act allowed Elliot to dictate his own prescribed drug regime and to bar his parents from seeing his medical record and test results that would have revealed the extent of his subsequent illicit drug use, said his parents.
Staples and Eurchuk argue parents must be allowed by law to step in and make competent health-care decisions with doctors on behalf of their children when dealing with youth who are addicted and at risk of dying.
Scherr maintains the coroner’s office is best suited to preside over an investigation aimed at making recommendations to social workers, health-care practitioners, school administrators, peace officers and parents.
Elliot was expelled from school rather than counselled for an addiction, he was discharged from hospital despite having overdosed in his hospital bed only days earlier, and when as a last resort he was committed under the Mental Health Act in order to get him drug-addiction treatment it proved to be more injurious than helpful, Staples said.