James Zimmer will always be remembered as a kind-hearted carpenter who dreamt of supporting people like himself who were struggling with mental illness, his family says.

“He wanted to start out with being a peer supporter,” said sister Cindy Zimmer.

But the dream never came to fruition. On Feb. 9, James, 50, took his own life after being discharged from Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, his family unaware of his whereabouts.

The family is the latest in B.C. to protest hospitals’ lack of compliance with the part of the Mental Health Act that requires loved ones to be notified of a patient’s admission or discharge from hospitals — something advocates claim health facilities often fail to do.

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CBC News
May 8, 2023