The Oak Bay High School community gathered Thursday to remember student Elliot Eurchuk.
Elliot, 16, died on April 20 in his Oak Bay home after taking street drugs his parents believe he was using to help him sleep.
Oak Bay High School principal Randi Falls said the school community, friends and family came together for a “memory event … to gain some closure and to help us move forward in a positive way.”
On Wednesday, Elliot’s parents, Brock Eurchuk and Rachel Staples, met with Mental Health Minister Judy Darcy to discuss concerns regarding the B.C. Infants Care Act. It allows teens under 19, with a physician’s consent, to make their own medical decisions and keep confidential their health-care records and treatment.
Elliot’s parents blame their son’s illicit drug habit on addictive painkillers prescribed for a series of injuries and post-operative pain, and the provincial law that kept them in the dark.
They have committed to seeing B.C.’s Infants Care Act changed or pressuring the NDP government to support the B.C. Liberals’ Safe Care Act that was reintroduced this year.
“It’s a bill that the former representative for children and youth said allows for the apprehension of vulnerable children and youth whose situation places them at an unacceptable level of risk and allows for the subsequent safe placement in a service that will respond to their trauma and high risk of harm,” MLA Jane Thornthwaite said when the bill was reintroduced in February.
Thornthwaite, the Opposition’s mental health critic, cited the stories of Elliot and Squamish teen Steffanie Lawrence, 15, as reasons that new short-term legal remedies are needed to help children, in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis.
In the throes of an opioid addiction, Steffanie was allowed to discharge herself from Lions Gate Hospital in January. She didn’t survive to the next morning.
Her parents, who tried to enrol her in a treatment program without her consent, were told by health-care professionals, police and government officials there was nothing they could do if she chose not to go.
Other jurisdictions, like Alberta, allow parents of young teens to step in and force their children to undergo treatment.
On Feb. 10 at about 1 a.m., Elliot was found in his Victoria General Hospital bed unresponsive and his skin blue in colour, hours after returning from a pass.
The next morning, his parents were barred from any medical information about what drugs their son took and his treatment plan.
“I could not force my Elliot into treatment and, like Steffanie’s story, Elliot’s ending was preventable,” Staples said.
Parents also struggle with the fear that if they force treatment, their children will run away.
“We need to be able to save our children,” Staples said. “They need the care and treatment whether they know it or want it. We need to be able to be parents. Two beautiful souls lost because of our province’s laws. Better to have them in treatment than plan their funerals.”
At-risk teens cannot make rational choices for their own care, she said.
Staples said lawyer Michael Scherr, a managing partner at Pearlman Lindholm, has volunteered his time to review the provincial law with her.
A memorial funeral service for Elliot will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at McCall Gardens.
Staples posted a poem online sharing the family’s profound grief and regrets for a “a lost boy who touched the marrow of our souls.”
The poem concludes: “A community rallies to put things right; But young death will never be made so; Only sweet memories can anesthetize the pain; Stories retold of a kind-hearted, spirited boy.”
