'Jenna died on a wait-list': Loved ones push for specialized postpartum psych care in B.C.

Vancouver mother Jenna Dorman had a habit of telling her friends just how much she loved them.

At dinner parties, the 42-year-old would look around the table and tell the people around her, over and over, how much they meant to her.

“She would just be like, ‘I just love you so much. I love you so much,’” recalled Kiri Bird, Dorman’s best friend. It was a quality Bird remembers as unmistakably charming.

A devoted mother of two, a successful tech executive and champion for women in her industry, Dorman was surrounded by friends and family who loved her. But when she developed severe mental illness following the birth of her second child, that support network could not provide the specialized psychiatric care she needed.

Dorman died by suicide in November 2024, when her youngest son was about 10 months old.

Now, Bird and a community of Dorman’s loved ones are pushing for Canada’s first mother-and-baby in-patient perinatal mental-health unit, where mothers experiencing severe mental illness during pregnancy or after childbirth could receive round-the-clock psychiatric care while staying with their babies, with nursery care available.

Their non-profit, In Her Circle, is urging all political parties in B.C. to commit to $3 million in startup funding and $8 million in annual funding to operate the unit at B.C.’s Women’s Hospital and Health Centre.

The B.C. Women’s Health Foundation has launched an $11-million fundraising campaign to renovate space at the Vancouver Women’s Hospital in the specialized eight-room unit. The campaign has already raised $3 million.

“We believe that if this life-saving care had existed, Jenna would still be here, that her boys would have their mother,” said Bird, co-founder of In Her Circle.

Bird and Dorman’s partner, Jay Hoggard, established In Her Circle after Dorman’s death. Three weeks ago, the group launched a petition calling on the province to commit to opening the unit by 2028. It has amassed more than 4,000 signatures.

According to the B.C. Women’s Health Foundation, mothers who need this level of care are often admitted to facilities without specialized perinatal mental health expertise or the capacity to meet their babies’ needs, meaning they can be separated during treatment.

The proposed unit’s care team would also connect patients with community services and followup care once their symptoms stabilize, according to the foundation’s campaign.

Similar mother-and-baby psychiatric units operate in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, allowing mothers to receive in-patient treatment while staying with their babies when it is safe to do so.

Among Canadian mothers, suicide is one of the leading causes of death, according to the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.

A Statistics Canada survey released in February found that 17 per cent of B.C. mothers and birthing parents in 2024 who struggled with their mental health during pregnancy or after giving birth couldn’t get the care they needed.

B.C.’s Perinatal and Postnatal Mental Health Strategy Act, which received royal assent on May 29, 2025, requires the health minister to develop a strategy supporting perinatal and postnatal mental health. The minister must consider measures to improve access to care, expand community services, increase provider training, and reduce barriers to treatment.

The B.C. NDP announced its support for the proposed unit on Tuesday as part of its provincewide women’s health strategy for the election campaign. Premier David Eby said a re-elected NDP government would cover the operating funding for the unit.

Bird is urging other parties to make the same commitment, saying access to specialized care should not depend on which party is in power.

“This is not just one party’s issue. It’s every party’s issue,” she said.

The B.C. Greens went further than the B.C. NDP’s commitment to the unit, saying it would provide provincial funding to both establish and operate the unit.

“B.C. Women’s Health Foundation has done incredible work building public support and raising funds, but the ongoing costs of acute care shouldn’t depend on donations. The province has a responsibility to make sure this unit is fully resourced, sustained, and able to grow.”

The party also criticized the NDP for not releasing a costed plan detailing the government’s contribution.

“So far, the NDP hasn’t released a costed plan showing what government will actually contribute. Families deserve that clarity, and a B.C. Green government would provide it,” the Greens told Postmedia in a statement.

B.C. Conservatives did not say whether they would fund the proposed unit if elected. Instead, the party criticized the NDP’s health care record and said it would focus on keeping maternity wards and emergency rooms open, hiring more doctors and nurses, and supporting rural medical practices at risk of closing, as well as pledging $50 million for an emergency fund.

“After nine years of failure, people deserve better than desperate election promises from David Eby and the B.C. NDP,” the party said in a statement to Postmedia.

Dorman had not experienced postpartum depression after the birth of her first child. But within three or four months of giving birth to her second, her mental health deteriorated rapidly.

“She became acutely suicidal within a span of months,” Bird said. “None of us saw it coming.”

Fearing she would be separated from her newborn, Dorman delayed seeking help, Bird said. When she eventually went to Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency department, she waited five days in an ER bed before being admitted to a psychiatric ward for several days. She was later discharged before being readmitted.

Her family and friends brought her meals, accompanied her to psychologist appointments, and searched for in-patient postpartum mental health services, Bird said. Waits for even basic postpartum supports were four to six months.

“Jenna was loved, she was advocated for, but when it came down to needing acute crisis support, that support was not there,” Bird told Postmedia.

“Jenna died on a wait-list,” said Bird. “She never got into a postpartum support group in this province.”

“We were all desperately trying to fill the gaps of the health care system.”

B.C. Women’s Health Foundation president and CEO Cally Wesson welcomed the NDP’s women’s health strategy and its support for the proposed unit, saying government funding is needed alongside private donations to improve care for women and newborns.

“Our generous donors have been instrumental in advancing innovative care for women and newborns, but philanthropy cannot do it alone,” Wesson said in a statement.

For Bird, the unit is about ensuring other mothers can access specialized care before a crisis becomes a tragedy.

“No mom should have to choose between getting well and being with their baby,” she said.