Widower blames HRT for wife's suicide
A Northamptonshire woman with a life-long history of depression killed herself while on anti-depressant medication, an inquest heard.
Elizabeth Jane Jenks, aged 51, from High Street, Flore, was found in a stream off Flore Lane, in the village, where she lived after telling her husband her depression had returned and booking an appointment with a psychiatrist.
Mrs Jenks's body was found by two walkers in the River Nene at about 9.30am on May 7 last year.
In his statement at the inquest, her widower, Ian Jenks, said his wife had repeated how sorry she was at becoming depressed again following a period of treatment at St Andrew's Hospital in 1999 when she received electroconvulsive therapy to recover from her illness.
Mr Jenks said he believed the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) his wife had been prescribed before she started her course of anti-depressants had triggered the depression that led to her suicide.
"I feel totally devastated. I had never seen this coming and never thought she would do anything so serious," he said.
"I have no doubt at all that her depression was triggered by the HRT."
Mrs Jenks's doctor at Weedon surgery, Dr Jonathan Hill, told the inquest he would not hesitate in using the same drugs to treat someone in a similar condition because, according to medical experts and guidelines, there were no specific side-effects.
Anne Pember, coroner, said: "She clearly had a depressive incident when she went to her doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants.
"She had already been prescribed HRT and clearly her depression had increased.
"At the post-mortem it was not possible to say for definite what exactly caused her death. The verdict I shall record is that she killed herself."
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