A “fun loving” student paramedic took her own life after her desperate pleas for mental health support went unanswered, an inquest has heard.
Georgia McCoy, 21, was found dead in bed by her university flatmate, after taking an overdose of prescription medication at her home in Earlsfield, southwest London.
In letters left behind, the popular second-year student laid out that she had been seeking mental health support, but felt she had been “over-medicated” and her cries for help went unanswered.
An inquest at Westminster coroner’s court heard Ms McCoy’s GP referred her to a specialist mental health team after she revealed that she was having “consistent thoughts of suicide” which she tried to distract herself from with music.
But after a telephone assessment with a psychiatric nurse, which had to be rescheduled due to staff shortages, she was discharged back to the GP’s care.
Two months before she died on December 4 last year, another referral to specialist services was made for Ms McCoy after she reported that she “strongly wanted to die”.
But the inquest heard the referral was missed in the email system at the Central Wandsworth and West Battersea unit, which is part of South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.
Ms McCoy’s family told the inquest she had excelled at swimming and gymnastics at school, and went to study to become a paramedic at St George’s, University of London. She was part of the university’s cheerleading squad as she pursued her studies.
“She would always make you laugh by telling you of the crazy antics she had been up to”, they said, in a statement read to the inquest, paying tribute to her “fun-loving personality”.
Describing her as a “beautiful and kind soul”, the family said she “loved and achieved more in 21 years than some people do in a lifetime, and it was always with a smile.”
But they also said Ms McCoy battled privately with her mental health.
“She always put others first and hid her struggles from us all”, they said, before adding that she was “begging for help” in her final months.
“She felt they wanted to over-medicate her, and not listen to her concerns”, the family said.
The hearing was told of a string of previous suicide attempts by Ms McCoy, who had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. She battled mental health struggles after the pandemic struck and had been left traumatised by the death of her father.
In September 2023, a months before she died, Ms McCoy posted on Instagram during suicide prevention month: “I’m not ‘better’ yet but I’m not going to stop fighting. The system may have failed me but I’m not going to fail myself. I have survived 100% of my worst days and I’m not going to change that. The world is a better place with you in it.”
Coroner Jean Harkin queried whether the referral for specialist mental health support in May 2023, after Ms McCoy had talked of suicidal thoughts, was dealt with appropriate.
“For someone having constant suicidal thoughts and trying to find ways of distracting herself, is it appropriate to refer back to the GP?”, she asked.
Henry Airen-Egharevba, a mental health nurse, said referrals back to GPs are commonplace, and told the hearing: “I don’t see this decision as unusual, because of the volume of referrals we receive with suicidal ideation. It’s a constant feature.”
The court also heard Ms McCoy, who was dyslexic, received a badly-formatted discharge letter without any warning or further consultation, and she tried to contact the trust to discuss it.
But her email was missed, in a mistake blamed on the high numbers of messages the team receives.
Wendy Mingle, a nurse who conducted an investigation after Ms McCoy’s death, said systems have been changed to try to avoid messages from patients and referrals being missed.
Asked if she thought Ms McCoy’s care had been “appropriate”, she replied: “With regard to longer term services, I think we could have probably done more, with regard to the referral to the community mental health team.”
Ms Harkin recorded the death as a suicide, saying “errors” were made in Ms McCoy’s care and she “felt unsupported”.
“Her mental illness and a lack of support she received from mental health services - they were the reasons she gave for doing what she did”, she said.
“She felt unsupported by medical services and she couldn’t go on living like that. That is a fact, she stated that.”
She added that changes have been made in the health care services in the hope of “making things better in the future for people in a similar position, because it is in the public interest to do so.”
For confidential support, the Samaritans can be contacted by calling 116 123 or going to samaritans.org
