Last year, Skye Turner overdosed on heroin in Melbourne’s CBD. The 33-year-old mother lay died in a van for hours before anyone even noticed.
Now, her family are campaigning for safe injecting rooms to be legalised in Melbourne, in hope that they can help save other addicts’ lives.
Channel Nine reporter Laura Turner and her mother Marie Turner appeared on A Current Affair last night to talk about their beloved sister and daughter respectively.
“My sister was beautiful and intelligent,” Laura said. “She was three years older than me, and she was my idol.”
“We knew Skye was suffering but we never knew how seriously,” Laura says. “We never knew she had turned to heroin.”
Just before Skye died, Marie was in hospital with her daughter when she expressed that she was suicidal.
“She told me in that area that she was worthless and that she may as well die.”
Marie says she attempted to explain to medical staff at the hospital that Skye wanted to end her life.
She recalls the staff’s reply being, “they all say that.”
“My daughter is not ‘they all’, she is a precious individual,” Marie said, fighting back tears.
When they released Skye anyway, they told her distraught mother, Skye just needed “to get off the drugs.”
Not long after, police were at the Melbourne mother’s doorstep telling her her daughter had died.
Marie and Laura Turner believe an injecting room could have saved Skye’s life.
“We know emergency services want this, that many health professionals want it, residents in that area want it too and we know that the injecting room set up in Sydney has had incredible results,” Ms Turner said.
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