TODAY we report the tragedy of a man with a history of depression who killed himself after being turned away from an East Lancashire hospital's mental health unit because of a shortage of beds.

But it is, perhaps, one that would not be written off with only a sad sigh if it was a case other than one involving mental illness.

Would there not be a far greater fuss if a person with, say, chronic heart disease died for lack of a hospital bed?

But in this case - and perhaps in that now under investigation involving a man who killed himself and his wife two days after being discharged from the same unit at Blackburn's Queen's Park Hospital - do we not see the grim consequences of the too-low status of mental illness in terms of awareness of it and provision for it?

Why should mental illness be such a Cinderella ?

In East Lancashire, do we not see that status reflected, not only in the state of affairs that led to this turned-away man's death, but even in the attempts to remedy it?

Last year a top-level report by the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust said it was widely recognised that the in-patient service was under "considerable pressure" because of too few beds, inappropriate facilities in hospital and a lack of them in the community.

It found that the total of 70 beds available was low for the size of population served by the Trust when 80 to 100 beds would be usual.

Yet even the £5million plan, which health chiefs have agreed, to develop a new mental health unit at Queen's Park will increase the number of beds by just two.

Is that enough?

Or is it that only just enough is being done - when the provision and back-up in community services should be sufficient to avoid future pressures on the resources and, so, future tragedies like this?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.