Parents and Mental Illness

Brampton teen's suicide tied to privacy law
Carleton staff prevented from contacting family of depressed teen
Apr 23, 2008 04:30 AM
Robyn Doolittle
Staff Reporter

Although the school was aware Nadia Kajouji had been suffering from depression, privacy laws prevented counsellors from contacting the girl's parents earlier, Carleton University officials told a news conference yesterday.


Nadia's family has been critical of the university for not telling them the teen had expressed suicidal thoughts and had been on antidepressants. The 18-year-old disappeared six weeks ago and only after she'd been gone three days did Mohamad Kajouji get a call from the school about his daughter's mental state. She had been seeing a counsellor and campus doctor and had been prescribed Cipralex, an antidepressant.

A body, which police believe is the Brampton teen, was found in the Rideau River on Sunday.

The tragedy has once again raised questions about a university's obligation to inform parents about their child's medical condition.

Her father says the doctors she was seeing knew she was feeling suicidal but didn't contact him until it was too late. Carleton would not comment on what information they had prior to Nadia's disappearance or what information was revealed to Kajouji.

"I can't comment directly on the Nadia case because of the legislation, but I can say that we do have protocol ... and, at Carleton, we feel that we had done everything we could for Nadia," said Suzanne Blanchard, associate vice-president for student services.

While legislation would protect confidentiality between Nadia and her doctor, the law also clearly states confidentiality can be broken if someone's life is in danger.

At Ryerson University, as at Carleton, senior student staff live on each floor in residence. These students are trained to detect signs of depression and, depending on the severity of the case, a range of procedures is carried out.

"There have been several cases (involving seriously depressed students) over the last few years where we have contacted somebody," said Glen Weppler, manager of student housing services at Ryerson. "We always tell the student that we will be contacting somebody and we ask, `who you would like us to contact?' Often it's a parent, but sometimes a sister, brother or, in at least one case, a teacher."

By all accounts, the Brampton teen had been a bright high school student with dreams of being a lawyer. But once she left for university, things changed. When the 18-year-old came home for Reading Week, her family noticed she seemed down. She'd recently split with a boyfriend and was having trouble in school.

Typical teenage stuff, her father thought.


During the investigation, police uncovered alarming online instant messenger conversations between Nadia and an American woman who encouraged the teen to kill herself in front of a web cam. Counselling someone to commit suicide is illegal in Canada.

Sgt. Uday Jaswal, who led the investigation, offered little comment on the online chats.

"That was provided to the family in confidence to them to help them understand the situation. We've taken the view that it's a personal family matter," he said.