Darren Coleman spoke to Miriam O'Callaghan about the deaths of his wife and baby son, the HSE apology regarding his wife's care and his concerns about mental health services for mothers with postnatal depression. Listen back to the full interview above.

Some of the details in this interview may be distressing for some. Links to helplines can be found at the bottom of the page.

In October 2020, Darren Coleman's wife Nicola Keane killed their 7-month old baby son Henry, before taking her own life. The 34-year-old nurse had been diagnosed with severe post-partum depression a few months after Henry was born. She had been receiving treatment from community mental health services in the months leading up to her death.

Darren was told by Nicola's care team to monitor his wife whenever she was with their son, which he did; but it was an uphill task as he had no training or experience in the area, as he tells Miriam O’Callaghan:

"It was a lot to take in that day between the postnatal depression; between monitoring Nicola full-time, the course of treatment, and I wasn’t educated on this."

There were home visits and a care plan put in place, but Darren says he discovered later that only a fraction of what was planned had materialised:

"I discovered afterwards, in the 106 days between Nicola say that she had postnatal depression and their deaths; she was only seen 31 times, which was 29% of the promised daily contact."

Darren says he was given the impression that his wife was improving, just before he returned to work as a primary school teacher in late August 2020. Unbeknownst to Darren, a child psychiatrist who observed Nicola at a play therapy session in Crumlin Hospital in October had expressed serious concerns:

"At this particular play therapy session, the psychiatrist was very concerned about Nicola’s state of mind and rang her mental health team and said 'She’s probably psychotic.’ But it was 7 days before they saw Nicola face-to-face and for me, that was the pivotal moment. She should have been assessed within 24 hours."

The HSE has apologised to Darren for failing to appreciate that his wife was suffering from psychotic depression, for failing to communicate this aspect of her condition with him and for failing to provide her with in-patient treatment.

Darren would like to see some changes in how partners and/or family members are kept up to date with treatment of severe depression in a loved one - particularly when it affects a vulnerable third party like a child. He says he doesn’t blame anyone who was caring for NIcola for what happened:

"I’m not here to blame any of the people involved in her care, they did their jobs, they were following certain guidelines and a template - they tried their best. But things need to change in that, if you see obviously dangerous tendencies, then the immediate family has to be told."

He says he fears that what happened to his family will happen again, if nothing changes:

"There has been more tragedy since. Unfortunately there will be more tragedies, if things don’t change right now."

Darren tells Miriam he’s happy that the stigma around mental illness has diminished in Ireland; but the problem is now with the provision of care, where he says there are important gaps that need filling:

"One of the key recommendations from the inquest into Nicola and Henry’s case back in September, the jury recommended that there’ll be specialised psychiatric mother and baby units be set up in Ireland. We need these opened quickly. In Ireland, we have none, in the UK they’ve 22."

Darren goes on to explain the prevalence of postnatal depression in Ireland:

"Statistics show one in five women, pregnant women will deal with mental health problems during pregnancy, or in the year afterwards. Irish women are being forgotten about."

With great support from those around him, Darren says he is now doing everything he can to stay well and positive; taking counselling, eating well and staying fit. He tells Miriam he believes strongly in the power of talking and he wants people to ask him how he is - and not to be shy about engaging him in conversation about his son, Henry:

"I think maybe it’s possibly an Irish way, just people find it, they think they’ll upset you if they ask. It actually upsets more when they don’t ask, that kind of way. I love talking about Henry."

If you’ve been personally affected by anything in this interview, you can contact Samaritans via email jo@samaritans.ie or call 116 123. Links to a range of support organisations can be found here.