A Manchester nurse committed suicide after spiraling downhill while struggling to cope with her career as a nurse.
What We Know:
- Leona Goddard was found hanging in her family home in October of last year. Her tragic death came just six months after she received a promotion at Prestwich Hospital in Manchester.
- According to the Metro UK report, Goddard left behind a two-page handwritten note describing her “negative feelings, a downward spiral and feelings of self-loathing”. Friends and family say she struggled to adjust to her new work responsibilities and that her schedule did not allow her to maintain a social life and relationships.
- Goddard’s mother, Corrine Goodridge said “The shift work in particular got her down as she did a 12-hour shift”. “Leona had not had any long-term steady relationship and the most recent one ended by text message.”
- Ex-boyfriend Peter Schaffer said, ”Leona had a wish to have children one day and start a family of her own and no doubt she would have been a great mother”. Peter ended the relationship after the communication began to dwindle down for weeks.
- An investigation into her death determined that stress played a major role. “Having considered all the evidence read and heard, it seems that Leona was under a great deal of stress going on for a long time,” coroner Angharad Davis said. “She had very low self-esteem and did not recognize in herself the person that everybody else saw.”
- In the last few weeks of her life Leona had been signed off work and told her GP that she felt ”unsupported” and ”had nightmares about work”.
In April, Mirror Online exclusively revealed that more than 300 nurses had taken their own lives in just seven years.
