John MacDonald: A closer look at our mental health hospitals is overdue - Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

It was bad enough that a patient at Hillmorton Hospital who had threatened to kill was still allowed to come and go and ended up killing an innocent woman at her Christchurch home.   

The fact this person had killed someone else previously, before taking the life of Faye Phillips last year, makes the circumstances behind the tragedy worse.  

On both occasions he was a mental health patient, which is why Ruth Money —who is the Government’s Chief Victims Advisor— is saying that we must have a Royal Commission of Inquiry into our mental health hospital system.  

And I’m with her. I think it has to happen.   

Last week we were astounded to learn that Elliot Cameron had been allowed to leave Hillmorton as he pleased, because he was a voluntary patient.  

Apparently, it had been decided at some point that he didn’t have to stay, but because he didn’t want to leave, he wasn’t forced out and he’d made all sorts of comments about killing people if he was forced out.  

And from the reports I’ve read, it seems staff had been helping him clean up his room, which may have led him to believe that he was about to be moved on.  

But who knows. Whether that was his motivation for murdering Faye Phelps, we’ll probably never know.  

Either way, last week he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years.  And today, we’re finding out that it wasn’t the first time he had killed someone.  

In 1975, he killed his brother. Shooting him while he slept at his parents' house.  

And when he committed that killing, he was a mental health patient. Just like he was a mental health patient when he murdered Faye Phelps.  

We haven’t known this until suppression orders relating to the 1975 case were lifted last night, which means we now have more context for this terrible, terrible situation.  

Last week, I couldn’t understand how anyone at Hillmorton could think that someone who had threatened to kill was fine to walk out the gate, get a bus to Mt Pleasant and do some gardening work for an innocent elderly woman.    

There is just no way that should have been allowed to happen.  

But the fact that he had already shown himself capable of killing someone makes that decision to let him come and go even worse.  

And if I was a member of Faye Phelps family —or if I was a friend of Faye Phelps— I would be absolutely livid, given these new revelations.  

What’s unclear to me, from the reports I’ve read, is how aware Hillmorton was that Elliot Cameron had killed his brother 50 years ago.  

I think it’s probably safe to assume that the hospital had some knowledge of it, given he’s been a mental health patient for 57 years. And that he was found not guilty of murdering his brother back in 1975 because he was deemed to be insane at the time.  

So it beggars belief.  

As Faye’s daughter Karen said last week: “Public safety must come first and should always have come first. Sadly, it wasn’t prioritised, and the result is what happened to my mum.” 

And that’s where the Government’s Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money is coming from too. She’s saying: “Another patient who has warned of his intent and distress numerous times and yet he too has gone on to kill for a second time.  

"The public deserves an inquiry that can give actionable expert recommendations, as opposed to multiple coroners inquests and recommendations that do not have the same binding influence. The patients themselves, and the public will be best served by an independent inquiry, not another internal review that changes nothing."  

And I couldn’t agree more because this is not the first time public safety has been compromised.  

Three years ago, there was the case of the Christchurc