Darren Coleman was at work as a primary school teacher one Friday in the winter of 2020 when he received a phone call from an unknown number. On the other line was someone from Crumlin children’s hospital (CHI) in Dublin.
They said the toxicology screening for his seven-month-old son Henry, who died a number of weeks earlier, had been completed and asked him what he wanted to do with his organs.
“They said I could incinerate them or I could bury Henry with them, which would mean digging his body back up again. And they asked me to let them know early next week. That was it. I went back into the class and went on with work,” he says.
“I rang back next week, because I wasn’t going to dig up his body.”
RM Block
The phone call came just over a month after Mr Coleman’s wife Nicola Keane (34) died by suicide after administering a lethal dose of medication to their son Henry on October 22nd, 2020.
She was suffering from postnatal depression and psychosis.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) has since admitted a breach in duty by failing to appreciate Ms Keane suffered from psychotic depression, failing to communicate this to her husband and failing to ensure she received inpatient treatment.
Speaking publicly to highlight issues he faced in the aftermath of his family’s death, Mr Coleman says when he received the phone call from Crumlin, he was still deep in the throes of grief.
He was feeling a range of emotions: anger, sadness, guilt. The call, he says, added to those difficulties.
“Maybe they didn’t know I was back at work but these are personal things they’re talking about. It should’ve been a letter asking me to come in to discuss, or they could’ve called the garda liaison and she could’ve called over and told me,” he says.
“I feel there was no empathy or care towards me a month or so after burying my family.”
A spokeswoman for CHI acknowledged “unexpected communication was distressing, and we apologise for additional pain caused”.
There have since been new guidelines introduced, she said, adding that the experience of Mr Coleman and other families “helped to inform what we hope are significant improvements in the process”.
Ms Keane worked as a paediatric nurse in Crumlin hospital. As a result, Mr Coleman thought he would receive “too much help” in the weeks after his wife and child died.
“All the people who were around Crumlin [hospital] – I was in and out visiting Henry’s body – and there were so many people coming up to me saying they will get help for me. And I was like: “‘Yeah, send help’, but it never came,” he says.
He organised counselling through FirstLight, a charity that provides free support to parents who have experienced the sudden loss of a child. He also returned to work eight days after the funeral in a bid to resume a sense of normality.
But while he was trying to navigate these feelings, he was also worrying about the house, changing the bills into his name, and other life administrative tasks.
For the first year, he says, he blamed himself for their deaths. “I kept thinking I had missed something.”
After obtaining one report into his wife’s care, he realised he needed to do further research. He spent the next three or four years reading reports, going over what happened again and again.
“She told them how sick she was. She was crying out for help. But she wasn’t getting the help she needed,” he says.
[ Demand for HSE’s free ‘talk therapy’ reaches 1,000 a monthOpens in new window ]
The inquests were another difficult moment during his grieving process. On two occasions, he said they were cancelled with two weeks’ notice because depositions weren’t handed over on time.
It took a toll on him, he says, as in the lead up to the inquests he was preparing to “go back through every fact of the day”.
He sued Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) and the HSE over the circumstances leading to his family’s deaths. The mediation process was long and difficult, he says, once again hindering his ability to grieve properly.
In May 2024, the legal action was settled through mediation. Though the HSE admitted a breach in care, CHI denied all claims.
Mr Coleman is still frustrated he never received an apology from CHI.
Less than a month before their deaths, Ms Keane attended a play therapy session with Henry at CHI Crumlin. Following this session, a child psychiatrist from the hospital informed Ms Keane’s adult psychiatrist they believed she was psychotic.
However, Mr Coleman says he was never informed of this and they allowed his son to go home with her when they believed she was experiencing psychosis.
“I think they still have to be found accountable. Just an apology. That’s all. I should’ve got an apology,” he adds.
A spokeswoman for CHI said it cannot comment on individual cases, but extended its “deepest condolences to the family”.
In the aftermath of the settlement, it was announced the HSE would conduct a review into the care received by Ms Keane and her son Henry.
Mr Coleman said he didn’t want or ask for one, as he didn’t think it would bring him any more closure. By that stage, it was almost four years since they died; he wanted to move on.
Draft terms of reference for the review were sent to Mr Coleman on July 2nd last year.
In it, they described Henry as being four months old instead of seven, and said the date of deaths was October 22nd, 2023, when in fact it was three years earlier in 2020, email correspondence shows.
“It was a lack of consideration towards me again. That really hurt me, it just brought back the negligence. It was only a two page document and they had two glaring mistakes,” he says.
The terms of reference said the review would be completed within 125 days. Last October, Mr Coleman contacted Kevin Brady, the head of mental health at the Dublin South, Kildare and West Wicklow HSE health area, as that deadline was approaching, requesting an update.
Mr Brady responded to Mr Coleman via text stating that “regrettably there has been a delay in getting commenced” adding that the “restructuring within the HSE” delayed the review process.
Mr Coleman said this news sent him “right back at rock bottom again”, adding that he wants to move on but has “no trust or confidence in this review being done correctly”. He is not engaging with the review process.
Responding to a series of questions from The Irish Times, a spokeswoman for the HSE acknowledged “the profound and devastating impact that the deaths of Nicola and Henry have had on Mr Coleman and we would like to reiterate our deepest regret and sincere sympathies to him, and to their extended families”.
The review into their care is “well advanced”, the spokeswoman said, and the review team “are in the process of drafting a report”.
“The HSE continue to remain available to engage with Mr Coleman and make what supports he needs available,” she added.
Now, Mr Coleman is letting the anger he had go. Instead, he is looking “positively to the future”.
He runs marathons, has started travelling more, and climbed Machu Picchu in Peru. He returned to college to do a postgraduate degree and sought career advancement in work.
What he would love to see in the future is an improvement in supports for the people who are left behind, picking up the pieces, when tragedy occurs.
He wants to see the immediate establishment of mother and baby units, which provide inpatient care to mothers with serious mental health conditions.
He also believes there should be family liaison officers or link workers in hospitals, to help people in the immediate aftermath of such incidents so they can understand what happens next.
“I’m not even a file number. Henry and Nicola are file numbers, but I’m not even considered in anyway. I’m just invisible. I often think it’s because I’m a man that no one was knocking on my door,” he says.
“Now, it’s just about changing things so that other people who need help can get it. The help I wasn’t given.”
If you are affected by any of the issues in this story, please contactThe Samaritans at 116 123 or email at jo@samaritans.ie
