Suicidal teen warned mental health hospital staff ‘slept on shifts’ and urged ‘shut this place down’

A suicidal teenager revealed that staff “slept on shifts” and said the scandal-hit mental health hospital she was being held in should be “shut down” in a note she wrote before her death, an inquest has heard.

Ruth Szymankiewicz, 14, died on 14 February 2022 after she was left alone at Huntercombe Hospital, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, despite requiring constant one-to-one observation, Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court was told.

In the 15 minutes she was left alone, Ruth, who had an eating disorder, made her way to her room, where she self-harmed. She was found and resuscitated before being transferred to hospital, but died two days later from a brain injury.

In a note written before she died, which was read aloud on Tuesday at the inquest into her death, Ruth said there was a lack of therapy at the hospital, which she said had an “unsafe number of staff”.

On Monday, the court heard that the support worker responsible for monitoring Ruth was working under a false identity and had completed just a day or a day and a half of online training the day before his first shift at the children’s psychiatric hospital.

Evidence presented at the inquest also revealed that on the day of Ruth’s death, he was working on another ward in the hospital, but had been assigned to Ruth as Thames Ward, where she was being cared for, was short-staffed.

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Source: The Independent, 5 August 2025