B.C. needs new mental health hospital, psychiatrist tells inquest into family’s death

BURNABY — A psychiatrist with British Columbia’s Northern Health authority called for a new mental health hospital in B.C. in her testimony to an inquest into the deaths of a Prince Rupert family.

The coroner’s inquest has heard that Christopher Duong was suspected by police to have killed his wife Janet Nguyen and their two young sons on June 13, 2023, three days after he was detained under the Mental Health Act but then released a few hours later.

Dr. Barbara Kane was asked if resources at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital, where Duong was assessed, could have influenced the decision to release him, with inquest counsel Steven Liu saying the hearing has heard the locked detention room at the hospital was “akin to torture.”

Kane says it’s a judgment call that is “not easy,” but she’s sure that some patients are discharged before they should be, because of a lack of appropriate resources.

She says patients “used to go (to) Riverview,” the psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam. B.C., that was closed in 2012, but doctors “don’t have that anymore.”

The hearing in Burnaby, B.C., has heard that Duong was released after an assessment by a doctor at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital who was also his longtime family physician, and who found him to be “friendly and calm” at the time.

Kane says safety plans for patients detained under the Mental Health Act normally aren’t done if they are subsequently released.

Asked for recommendations about psychiatric care, Kane said that the lack of a psychiatric hospital in B.C. has caused backups in patient care.

“We need a psychiatric hospital in B.C., a real psychiatric hospital,” she said, adding that maybe the province needed “a couple of them.”

Police apprehended Duong after he was found driving around Prince Rupert at 2 a.m., with Nguyen and their boys aged two and four, saying they had to keep driving or they would be killed in a “hit.”

Duong was known to police and rumoured to be involved in the drug trade, while a notice of civil claim filed by B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture in 2015 describes him as a “violent gang member and drug trafficker.”

But an RCMP officer told the inquest on Thursday there was no evidence that anyone else was involved in the deaths of the family, who were all found in bed together, with an electrical cord around Nguyen’s neck, cuts to Duong’s arms and legs, and the two boys arranged with teddy bears at their feet.

The officer said a video “last will and testament” was found on the couple’s phones.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2026.

The Canadian Press