NHS nurse killed himself after losing his job, inquest told

An award-winning nurse who died after setting himself on fire outside Kensington Palace suffered a “mental breakdown” over how his NHS employers handled his dismissal, an inquest heard.

Amin Abdullah, 41, died on 9 February last year close to the London home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after being sacked from Charing Cross hospital where he worked as a charge nurse.

An inquest into his death on Monday heard how he had previously attempted to take his own life and had told a patient in the unit where he was being treated he was going to set himself on fire.

Giving evidence at Westminster coroner’s court, his partner, Terry Skitmore, said Abdullah slipped into a depressive state during a disciplinary investigation which began in September 2015 and after he subsequently lost his job at Imperial College healthcare trust.

Skitmore said Abdullah, who “lived for the job”, was a “caring” and “dedicated nurse” and “struggled to understand what he was being disciplined for”.

The inquest heard how he had written a letter for another colleague caught up in a complaint made by a patient “to show how she could respond”, resulting in him getting embroiled in the issue.

Skitmore said Abdullah, after initial meetings and the investigation, did not hear anything about the disciplinary “for many weeks” and put in a grievance regarding the delays in a bid to get some answers.

On 21 December 2015 he was handed an instant dismissal on the grounds the letter he had written to support his colleague was “untrue”.

Skitmore said the delays in the disciplinary process eventually led to the mental breakdown of his Malaysian-born partner, who grew up in an orphanage and became a British citizen in 2009.

Under questioning, Skitmore said: “The disciplinary and additionally the 10 weeks of ignoring him caused him to have a mental breakdown and caused him to do what he did. I have got to live the rest of my life with that, and I do not want anyone else to go through that.”

Holding up a picture of his partner smiling on holiday in Spain, he described him as the “happiest man in the world”, adding: “Seven months later I’ve got a pot of ashes with candles beside it. They have lost a magnificent nurse and I have lost a magnificent partner.”

Skitmore also revealed in a statement read out by the coroner, Dr Shirley Radcliffe, that Abdullah had told him his mother had killed herself through self-immolation, but that a friend of his partner said she may have jumped in a river.

The inquest heard how on 27 January last year Abdullah was voluntarily admitted to St Charles mental health unit, after attempting to take his own life.

Abdullah had lodged an appeal against his dismissal in January 2016 and a hearing date had been set for 11 February.

The inquest heard how on 8 February Abdullah had been allowed to leave the unit to go to collect a suit ahead of the impending hearing. He had at points during his time in the care of the hospital been placed on observation and had been given 15-minute escorted cigarette breaks because of the risk deemed by staff.

He had also told another patient at one point that he intended to go out the following day and “have sex and set himself on fire” – something he denied when it was later put to him by a doctor.

Consultant psychiatrist Anna Higgitt said the unit took into account things he was saying to people which “varied at times”, when making the decision to extend his unescorted leave to one hour.

She said “a lot of the time he was planning for the future” and had told staff he would find a job somewhere else, and ahead of the hearing had even been out to have a haircut.

“He wanted from the start to have more freedom than we offered. We negotiated and he stuck to what we agreed. Up until he did not come back – he stuck to it really well,” she told the inquest.

The inquest is expected to last three days.

• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123.
  In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

NHS nurse killed himself after losing his job, inquest told