The lives of two Enniskillen sisters who died by suicide within weeks of each other “could have been saved if they had received help sooner.”

That is the belief of the Reilly family, who tragically lost 23-year-old Shauna on December 17, 2016 and 33-year-old Michelle on February 10, 2017.

Their father Michael and sister Emma spoke to The Impartial Reporter this week and called for a drop-in centre in Fermanagh for people to access before they reach crisis point and require a suicide intervention.

“We’ve been through the worst possible experience that anyone can ever go through,” said Emma (31). 

It is one year since Emma, the only surviving Reilly child, put pen to paper and wrote a heart-rending letter to former Health Minister Michelle O’Neill about her youngest sister Shauna’s negative experience of mental health services in the lead up to her suicide. It was also the day the Stormont Executive collapsed, and Emma received no reply. Mrs. O’Neill subsequently tracked Emma down and telephoned her. A few weeks later the Minister released £750,000 investment in suicide prevention and mental health programmes but said the money had nothing to do with the phone call.

Twelve months on and Emma believes: “Not one thing has changed – there’s still a load of empty promises. The money that was released last year, where did it go? What did it do? Because we certainly haven’t seen it in the local area,” she stated.

Emma and her parents have been struck by the number of deaths by suicide in Enniskillen over Christmas and the New Year.

The family state: “There needs to be an intervention before people reach crisis point.”

Michael added: “Shauna and Michelle’s lives could have been saved if they had received help sooner. It’s not just our children, it’s their children, our grandchildren – it’s our whole future which is lost,” the bereft father said.

He pointed to the empty Clinton Centre and prompted decision-makers to fund a local building that could be used as a suicide drop-in centre, in a bid to save lives.

Shauna’s first anniversary mass was held on Christmas Eve. Reeling from grief and anticipating her older sister Michelle’s first anniversary mass next month, Emma once again poured her heart onto paper. The result was a powerful and eloquent blog about surviving suicide which went viral on social media last week and prompted a flood of responses from people affected by suicide.

Likening suicide to “a slow growing cancer,” Emma wrote “you have to watch and wait, to see not if but when, it’s going to cause damage.”

Addressing suicide directly, she added: “Before you attack you torture the poor soul, you make them believe that their life and that of others would be so much better if they were no longer in it … You give them hell! You make them feel unworthy of compassion, of love, of a single ounce of human kindness because unbeknown to the poor individual, you have poisoned their mind and your existence has firmly been established.”

Emma’s blog continued: “First you took Shauna, my stunning, caring, gifted and thoughtful baby sister … Like the devil in disguise you destroyed my baby sister. She didn’t believe she was amazing, kind, generous and beautiful. She listened to you and she died.

“You didn’t even give us a chance to try to cope without Shauna. Secretly in the background like an invasive terminal cancer you were working your evil on my older sister, Michelle and just seven weeks later you took her too … Today we should be planning Michelle’s hen party. Instead, I am researching verses for the paper for Michelle’s first anniversary.”
Emma continued: “Overnight I have become an only child … And when Mum and Dad are gone, there will just be me, no siblings to lean on, just me and it terrifies me.”

Determined that her sisters’ deaths will not be in vain, Emma has pledged to “go as high as I have to” in her quest to see the establishment of a suicide drop-in centre in Fermanagh.

“In my blog I compared suicide to cancer, but cancer services are funded and suicide services are not,” said Emma.

The Belfast-based charity PIPs – which offers a ‘no appointment’ service to ensure there is always someone to contact for a chat when a person might feel vulnerable, might be at risk of suicidal behaviours or in need of assistance or guidance – is exactly the type of service Emma would like to see replicated locally.

She also admires Lighthouse, the suicide prevention charity in Belfast; SOSAD, a suicide prevention charity in Cavan and Pieta House, the Dublin head-quartered charity which helps people in suicidal distress and has recently opened a centre in Letterkenny.

Her aim is “to establish a new group and if possible, use the PIPS framework to help this happen.”

A PIPs spokesman told The Impartial Reporter that Emma’s blog has generated a huge response. He commended her courage and got behind her call for a drop-in centre. “Any organisation can be set up by the will of the people. PIPS was established by the parents of 14 young people who took their own lives within a short space of time over 10 years ago. We are a charity which relies on fundraising. If we were funded I would love to set up west of the province but for now we are here to offer guidance and support,” he said.

A nurse, Emma has recently moved from her former role at the Haematology Ward in Belfast City Hospital to the South West Acute Hospital. She is “comforted” by the fact she is living in the family home where she grew up with Shauna and Michelle.

Emma is aware of the SOLOS (Survivors of Loved Ones to Suicide) support group which meets on the second Monday of each month at the Oak Healthy Living Centre in Lisnaskea and the Fermanagh Bereaved by Suicide group ‘Forget Me Not’ which meets on the first Monday of every month in the Aisling Centre, but she has not felt strong enough to attend.

The family completed the Darkness Into Light run, raising £2,000 for the Oak Healthy Living Centre and £2,000 for Pieta House. They have also benefited from attending the Forget Me Not’s ‘Memory Tree of Lights’ ceremony held at Breandrum Cemetery, a suicide retreat at Lough Derg and the Lourdes pilgrimage.

Emma concluded: “This isn’t going to happen overnight. What is needed is a driving force of local people who want a drop-in centre and who believe in it.”

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