Failing Emily: Family’s mission, review triggered after young woman takes own life metres from hospital

Eating breakfast and believing their daughter was safe in hospital, Emily’s family trusted the system. Within hours, she was dead. Now, they believe details of her tragic loss are being covered up.

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Emily Williams was admitted to Flinders Medical Centre as a suicidal patient. But within 24 hours, she was discharged to die, taking her own life in a park across the road.

Her family is convinced the hospital has covered up mistakes that led to her tragic death, aged just 29.

Watch the heartbreaking documentary in the video player above

A three-month investigation by The Advertiser has triggered an independent review into Emily’s case, ordered by Health Minister Chris Picton.

The family accuse Flinders staff of ignoring their repeated requests to call them before discharging her, then attempting to cover this up, including by failing to tell the Coroner’s Office she had been a patient before her suicide, forcing a subsequent correction in her death certificate.

They are begging for answers but Flinders has refused to hand over Emily’s medical records, even after official Freedom of Information requests and an unsuccessful Ombudsman’s appeal.

Emily Williams’ aunty Wendy-Jayne Williams with Emily's parents Peter and Jenny Williams. The family has spent two years pleading for answers over her death. Picture: Emma Brasier

Mr Picton said: “I fully understand their search for answers and more information.”

In a statement vetted for days by state government lawyers, Mr Picton added a Coroner’s investigation into Emily’s death “limits what I am able to say”.

Emily’s parents, Peter and Jenny Williams, had fought for years asking Adelaide hospital authorities to contact them before she was discharged, because of numerous suicide attempts during a downward mental health spiral triggered by a violent rape when she was 18.

But this did not happen on December 30, 2023, when they were happily eating breakfast at Glenelg, believing Emily was being cared for at Flinders after admitting herself and being involuntarily detained on a mental health order the day before.

Instead, her family says was assessed by a psychiatrist and the detainment order removed. She then left the hospital, called a mental health hotline and said she was going to kill herself.

Authorities alerted SA Police, which had helped the family numerous times, and a nearby helicopter was diverted and a patrol activated.

Peter says his daughter was found unresponsive by “a lovely lady and her daughter walking through the park” and readmitted to Flinders.

Peter and Jenny were told the heartbreaking news by two police detectives when they returned to their Edwardstown home after breakfast.

Emily was remembered as a bright, funny young woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Picture: Supplied

She was just 29 years old when she took her own life, just metres from Flinders Medical Centre. Picture: Supplied

“When we got to the hospital she was already in the ICU on life support and when we walked in, we knew that something was different,” Peter said.

“The brain had switched off, so we had to go through the formalities of the testing for 24 hours … then on New Year’s Eve, she was declared dead.”

Peter’s sister, Wendy-Jayne Williams, is a respected Adelaide employment business leader who was at the fateful Glenelg breakfast.

“We’re met with this situation where all the right things were done. Emily, with her illness, puts her hand up and says: ‘I need help’. To then be turned away? To be turned away and told: ‘You look fine today? You present fine’. What do you do? Do you have to be acting deranged and psychotic?” said Wendy-Jayne, the managing director of firms including Jobs Statewide.

“We were just astounded and we kept asking: ‘Why weren’t we notified?’ Why? We were literally down the road having breakfast. We would have immediately come to pick her up. So that one phone call was critical to Emily surviving that day.

“Why can’t we access Emily’s medical records to find out what happened that day? Why? Why is the story changing?

Her son, Bailey Williams, also leads Adelaide recruitment firms and was a grand finalist in this year’s My Kitchen Rules series.

“There’s definitely a cover up. One hundred per cent there’s a cover up here. How can you be in a situation where the worst thing that a family could ever imagine, happens?” he said.

Emily’s family believes the hospital covered up details about the circumstances of her death. Picture: Supplied

Emily’s mother, Jenny, is haunted by what the family says is a fatal breakdown of protocols that cost her daughter’s life.

“Keeps me awake every night. I said (later to clinicians): ‘You would have known not to discharge if you had read her notes’,” she said.

Government officials privately delivered the extremely veiled hint that Emily had asked clinicians not to tell her family about her discharge. But there is no trace of this in any responses.
The only time Emily’s family was told that she had been discharged was by the psychiatrist who made the call, shortly after her death.

In a five-paragraph statement, Mr Picton said Emily’s death was tragic and he extended his “heartfelt condolences to her family”.

“I fully understand their search for answers and more information. The Coroner is conducting an investigation into Emily’s death which limits what I am able to say,” he said.

“I have asked Chief Psychiatrist Dr John Brayley to commission an independent review into Emily’s case. Dr Brayley will engage an interstate psychiatrist to undertake this review.”

Health Minister Chris Picton says an independent review will be commissioned into Emily’s case. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Mr Picton said a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill was being finalised and would include “a new proposed requirement, for when involuntary orders are reviewed, that clinicians have regard to information from family and carers (and others affected)”.

“This will include information about risk to self or others that may not be forthcoming from the patient,” he said.

In another statement, SA Health said: “Our condolences are with the family for their loss. We are unable to provide further comment about Emily’s case while there is an investigation underway.”

SA Police and the Coroner’s Office said the matter was subject to a Coronial investigation and declined further comment.

Peter Williams last Thursday received a letter from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation agency, saying it had completed an investigation and there would be “no further regulatory action”.

“It is clear that the care provided to your daughter was not what you hoped for but it does not appear … that (the psychiatrist who discharged Emily) has behaved in a way that would require regulatory intervention,” the letter says.

Watch the exclusive documentary Discharged to Die: Failing Emily in the video player above

If you or someone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14

Originally published as Failing Emily: Family’s mission, review triggered after young woman takes own life metres from hospital