Internal review after 19-year-old's suicide following repeated psychiatric discharges in Pirkanmaa

A 19-year-old patient identified as Rusko died by suicide in April after multiple short stays and repeated discharges from psychiatric care in the Pirkanmaa wellbeing services county, YLE reports.

Rusko and his mother, Mirka, spent roughly six months trying to secure effective treatment after an overdose in October 2025. He repeatedly sought inpatient care and emergency help but was often sent home, and staff notes later recorded frustration with his apparent helplessness. During a brief ward stay his antidepressant dose was doubled and staff recorded an agreement that he would leave the medication with his mother, an agreement Mirka says she never received. He collected the medication from the pharmacy and died two days later.

Pirkanmaa has opened an internal review into the death, and Lumikukka Socada, head psychiatrist for the region, said risk assessments are always individual, so not every expression of suicidal thoughts leads to long-term ward admission. She said options such as weekly-dispensed medication or family-held prescriptions are used in higher-risk cases. Marena Kukkonen of the Suicide Prevention Centre said continuity and clear, up-to-date care plans focused on suicide risk can be the difference between life and death, and access to follow-up varies between wellbeing services counties. Mirka remains critical of how Rusko's autism, medication changes and the tone of some clinical encounters were handled. She says her child’s warnings were not believed.

The death comes amid wider concerns about Pirkanmaa’s health services, including a recent rise in harassment and threats against wellbeing services staff reported concerns about staff harassment and plans to centralise outpatient psychiatry in Tampere that critics say could lengthen patients’ journeys centralisation plans. Earlier in the summer, a separate YLE story detailed patient records found at an abandoned rehab centre a data-protection incident.