Alexandra Greenway
Age 2311 May 2019
Bristol (United Kingdom)
Suicide
Alexandra died by suicide. She had reportedly been distressed at not being able to access hair removal treatment and her mental health needs were not being met by the NHS.
Alexandra Greenway was 23 years old when she died on 11 May 2019. She became unresponsive after excessive vomiting that night, having potentially ingested a toxic substance. Alexandra was a transgender woman, who experienced mental ill health and was under the care of Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and her local GP. In the weeks before her death she reported increasing distress relating to a desire for the gender affirming treatment of hair removal.
Alexandra was from Bristol. She loved literature and enjoyed playing the guitar. Her family say that as a child, she had an inquisitive mind. She could read by the age of three and was regarded as a gifted child at school. She was interested in political controversy and human rights. She chose to study clinical psychology at university, because she was interested in what made people tick.
Alexandra identified as a transgender woman. She had previously accessed some gender affirming treatment including a surgery in 2017, but her family report she had very difficult experiences with this including poor treatment by NHS staff. Alexandra also had complex mental health needs. Trans people are at disproportionately high risk of mental ill health and suicide.
An inquest held into her death in October 2020 recorded a conclusion of suicide. At it, her mother gave evidence that Alexandra was waiting for NHS talking therapy when she died.
The mother of a transgender woman found dead at her flat in Bristol has told an inquest that her daughter and other people with mental health issues had died because they are unable to access the talking therapy they needed.
A month before she apparently took her own life, Alexandra Greenway, 23, was escorted to a psychiatric hospital for her own safety by police after what they believed was a suicide attempt.
The consultant psychiatrist who spoke to Greenway at the hospital wrote to her GP recommending that she received talking therapy.
Greenway was relieved at the idea that she was finally going to get the treatment she felt she needed, but by the time she died on 11 May last year, no therapy had been arranged.
Her mother, Jacqueline Greenway, told Avon coroner’s court: “The fact is people keep dying, and they die because the treatment doesn’t materialise.”
Alexandra's Facebook profile is https://www.facebook.com/aezgreenway.
https://planettransgender.com/bristol-transgender-woman-found-dead-in-her-apartment/
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/grieving-mother-feels-transgender-daughter-4619459
https://dnyuz.com/2020/10/14/trans-woman-was-waiting-for-therapy-when-she-died-mother-tells-inquest/
https://www.inquest.org.uk/alexandra-greenway-opens
https://www.facebook.com/groups/spotlightnewspaper/permalink/1490640144459572/
https://www.facebook.com/inquestUK/posts/10158703288941655
https://www.facebook.com/BipolarAwareness/posts/10157335885927035
