Hillary's Law passes, calling for automatic inquests after suicides in psychiatric units

With the passing of Hillary's Law, Patty Borthwick says her fight to ensure her daughter did not die in vain is now over. 

Borthwick was in the public gallery of the legislature to see politicians come together and unanimously pass Bill 30, which contained a number of changes to the Coroner's Act. 

"This chapter is done," Borthwick said after the vote Thursday.

"She didn't die silently or namelessly … and people will know that she existed because of this bill."

The most important change, said Borthwick, is that any death in a psychiatric facility will be subject to an automatic coroner's inquest unless the death is determined to be from natural causes. 

"People will get their answers and they don't have to fight," said Borthwick.

"Now, when someone in a jail dies by suicide [or] someone in a hospital, a provincial institution dies by suicide, there's an automatic inquest."

Hillary Hooper, 27, was a patient in the psychiatric unit of the Saint John Regional Hospital after trying take her life on Nov. 13, 2020. After 19 days on 4D North, the hospital's secure psychiatric unit, Hooper did end her life. 

Borthwick spent the next two years fighting unsuccessfully to get answers into why and how her daughter died. An inquest was eventually called into Hooper's death and was held in March, resulting in 15 recommendations. 

Even after the inquest ended, Borthwick continued her crusade to ensure other families in a similar position won't have to fight so hard to get answers. 

She continued working with her MLA, Andrea Anderson-Mason, on "Hillary's law," as she called it. 

Now others are calling it that, too. 

From the floor of the house on Thursday, Anderson-Mason introduced Borthwick, who was sitting in the public gallery. 

Anderson-Mason said Borthwick was "determined each and every day to make sure that she left the proper legacy for her daughter. And that is why we are here today. We will hear the third reading of amendments to the Coroners Act and in it is included provisions that we will know as Hillary's Law."