{"id":856341,"date":"2026-09-22T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T07:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856341\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T07:10:11","slug":"springfield-mother-says-broken-health-care-system-failed-son-before-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856341\/","title":{"rendered":"Springfield mother says broken health care system failed son before suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LANE COUNTY, Ore. \u2014 A Springfield mother is speaking out after her 31-year-old son died by suicide, saying gaps in the health care system left him without the help he needed.<\/p>\n<p>Malissa Glass said her son, Ethan Ewers, died by suicide March 30, 2023. She said she first noticed a shift in him when he was a teenager.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEthan was probably about 14-years-old and came to me talking about struggles in school, and I kind of noticed that he was withdrawing a little bit more,\u201d Glass said.<\/p>\n<p>Lane County Public Health (LCPH) says loved ones should pay attention to changes like withdrawal, noting the county sees an average of 80 suicides a year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Glass said her son had been diagnosed bipolar, depressed and schizophrenic, and was taking medication. But she said he struggled to find care to refill prescriptions while battling voices in his head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could tell he was struggling a little bit. He was worried \u2019cause he couldn\u2019t find a primary care provider that could refill his prescriptions because you can\u2019t get a refill without a primary care or a psychiatrist care. Within six days, we found his body at his apartment,\u201d Glass said.<\/p>\n<p>Glass said she believes a continuum of care in Lane County could have kept her son from dying by suicide, and she blamed the county for inaccessible appointments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no continuum of care. It\u2019s like you get the medications and then you\u2019re discharged to go figure it out. And that was his biggest struggle is he didn\u2019t know how to figure it out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>LCPH says it is working to improve access to care through a partnership with PeaceHealth. The hospital is set to build an emergency mental health facility in Springfield called<a href=\"https:\/\/kval.com\/news\/local\/oregon-health-authority-weighs-peacehealth-timber-springs-behavioral-health-hospital-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Timber Springs Behavioral Health Hospital<\/a> by 2029, with the Lane County Stabilization Center adjacent to that hospital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is the sort of keystone in our overall prevention strategy, and we have lots of partners in the community who want to be a part of that solution too, but we don\u2019t have that place where you can self-present. And that\u2019s where the Stabilization Center will be. And that\u2019s critical that we sort of put that last piece in the overall continuum,\u201d LCPH Communications Director Jason Davis said.<\/p>\n<p>Public health officials also urged families and friends to watch for warning signs. Davis said, \u201cIsolation, hopelessness. Those are two of the most common sort of underlying feelings that folks have before suicidal ideation begins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Davis said rural communities are hit hardest, and that factors including bullying, the impact of social media and economic struggles contribute to county suicide rates. Davis also encouraged open conversations about suicide.<\/p>\n<p><p>KVAL &#8211; Springfield mother says broken health care system failed son before suicide<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s this idea that if we talk about it that people will be more likely to complete it, and it\u2019s exactly the opposite. The more we talk about it, the more we normalize the conversation about suicide, the more apt an individual is to be forthright when talking about their own struggles,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n<p>Lane County Public Health says the county is working to grow its provider base and tapping trauma intervention partners within the community to better understand the problem and provide resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LANE COUNTY, Ore. \u2014 A Springfield mother is speaking out after her 31-year-old son died by suicide, saying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-856341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}