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A warning this story discusses suicide. A mother grieving the loss of her child is speaking out about gaps in the health and mental health care systems she turned to for help. Days out from what would have been her songs 17th birthday Darwin woman Gertrude Jane-Knight says she is sharing her painful lived experience in the hope of saving others from what her family went through.

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00:02Fearing the worst for her beloved son Gertrude Jane Knight says she fought desperately for medical help with his depression
00:10and found none before it was too late.
00:13So I was reaching out to everyone, help me, what do I do? I'm desperate here and constantly I was
00:20being told you don't know what you're talking about. There is nothing wrong with your son.
00:25But a mother knows and tragically was right.
00:28My son passed away on the 3rd of November. Felix and I shared his 16th birthday last year on the
00:3518th of September. This year would have been Felix's 17th birthday.
00:42Remembered by his friends and family as beautiful, funny, energetic and creative, in the Northern Territory Felix is sadly not
00:52alone. The Territory has the country's highest rate of suicide and emergency presentations for self-harm. In remote areas conversations
01:01about mental health are compounded by intergenerational trauma, poverty and shame.
01:07You can't just look at targeting suicide. You have to look at, OK, what else is going on for this
01:12person? That's come to this point for that person. What's got them there?
01:19And too often services staffed by workers without the trust of community.
01:24They don't have that lived experience, they don't have that empathy and understanding so therefore it's just a 9 to
01:295 job and it's a tick in the box in communities and that's one of the biggest problems.
01:34Lived experience, the drive behind this suicide prevention forum in Darwin focused on changing the system to better support those
01:42in crisis.
01:43How do we change that so that people that go to a GP have more time to be listened to
01:51but also making sure that GPs actually do have the skills and the training to deal with people that are
01:58suicidal.
01:59A cry for help from those closest to the Territory's suicide crisis.
02:04There you go, absolutely.
02:04We can commit to cailleous fire to a dealer in designing of an end pose.
02:04Selected the line and we'llAAAAA voice with a pair ofroatia fourth souvent.
02:05iq.
02:05iq.
02:09but lived experience, which means I hope to define the crowd from the Califax Festival down.
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