THE death of a Weymouth woman who struggled to get the mental health help she needed in Dorset has sparked a national campaign.

Just a week before her death 26-year-old Louise Wright checked herself into the Forston Clinic near Dorchester suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – a condition which brings chronic feelings of emptiness.

She was found dead in the clinic with injuries consistent with strangulation, which are believe to have been self-inflicted. Now Louise’s fiancé, Danielle McColm, has launched a national campaign in her memory asking people to ‘see the person not the diagnosis’ in an effort to prevent similar tragedies.

She believes that Louise had told staff at the mental health clinic that she was hearing voices and wanted to kill herself.

She said: “All too often patients with BPD are assessed with their diagnosis in mind – warning signs can be written off as attention-seeking and medical staff can become too hung up on the badge of a diagnosis.

“We urge those experts to get to know patients; they’re all different and need a personal, holistic and tailored approach to suit their individual complexities.”

She added: “Lou had written a suicide note three days before her death.

“She was beautiful, bright and bubbly but also terrified and lonely. “She suffered paranoia and self-harmed regularly. “She had a passion for animals and her dream was to go to college to study agriculture and animal care.

“I believe her complex history and fear of abandonment, which linked back to her childhood all played a role in her death.”

Danielle heavily criticised the out-of-hours mental health teams who she said were simply not available out of office hours in the west of the county.

Before her death Louise, of Chapelhay, Weymouth, spoke to the Echo explaining that she had tried to commit suicide over Christmas after failing to receive any help from an emergency out-of-hours service.

She said that she’d swallowed more than 100 anti-depressants and anti-psychotic tablets and spent two days with mental health issues in intensive care and two days in a high dependency unit at Dorset County Hospital.

At the time she said that she ‘told all the right people but nobody was prepared to help’.

Prior to the overdose, the pair say they spent hours calling the crisis response team at Forston Mental Health Clinic and their local GP after Louise became severely distressed.

But although they were given ‘some general advice’ over the phone, no one came out to visit them until it was almost too late.

Louise said: “If there was more support put in place in Weymouth and Portland maybe it wouldn't have got to that stage.”

Danielle added: “Louise and I recently learned her condition was misdiagnosed and arranged for a new meeting with a psychiatrist to try to diagnose it.

“She hears voices and she told me that the night she took the overdose these voices were telling her to hurt me and that she did not want to do that.”

Launching the campaign alongside Danielle is Uncovered, a publication which aims to eliminate the stigma attached to mental illness.

Charlotte Fantelli, editor and founder of Uncovered, said: “Those closest to Louise want to know how someone known to be a suicide risk was apparently left for 15 minutes before someone found her. “An inquest will help decide whether practical lessons can be learned but outside of that formal process Louise’s fiancé Danielle wants a shift in approach from health professionals across the UK.”

The campaign also has the backing of the mental health charity SANE and will seek to dispel the myths surrounding BPD, signposting help for sufferers and lobbying medical staff to get to know their patients.

A spokesperson for NHS Dorset said: “We are unable to comment on individual cases, however we can confirm we are undertaking an investigation and will be meeting with members of Louise’s family to share our findings and to respond to the formal complaint”.