NZ mental health service admits it “failed” Chills/Clean co-founder who died under their care

A health service in New Zealand has admitted that it failed Peter Gutteridge, one of the architects of the famed Dunedin Sound and co-founder of three of its best-known bands, The Chills, The Clean and Snapper.

Gutteridge died on the morning of Monday, September 15, 2014, while under the care of the mental health unit of the Middlemore Hospital.

Deputy chief coroner Brandt Shortland found that his death was self-inflicted. He was aged 53.

The musician was committed after arriving at Auckland airport three days before from the United States in an “agitated and confused” state.

The coroner found that the hospital had regularly observed Gutteridge every 15 minutes.

However, two friends who visited him reported to the night nurse they were alarmed by Gutteridge’s behaviour.

He had told them, “I don’t know if I’m going to last very long,” and fretted about the fact he had not made a will.

Counties Manukau District Health Board clinical director of mental health and addiction services Dr Peter Watson told the inquest that his service “failed Mr Gutteridge”.

An internal review found that staff had not recognised “acute opioid dependence detox”.

Gutteridge had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for most of his life, coroner Shortland said.

Gutteridge formed The Clean in 1978 with schoolmates Hamish and David Kilgour.

He helped put together The Chills in 1980 but quit after a few months because its other members were “too controlling”.

He returned to the Kilgours and formed The Great Unwashed in 1983.

He also assembled Snapper in 1986 and played in The Cartilage Family, The Alpaca Brothers and The Puddle.

In late 2014 Gutteridge flew to New York where The Clean were playing, hoping to be invited to re-join the band on the subsequent US tour.

However that had not happened, and he had returned depressed to New Zealand.

Airport customs officials noticed he was disorientated and became alarmed when he told them “I have burned all my bridges and really messed things up.”

According to police, voices in his head wanted him to give up his possessions, and that as a result of staying longer in the US than planned he had run out of his medication.

The coroner reported, “Perhaps he was unrealistic with his own expectations and his abilities, nevertheless he pursued his dream in the hope that he could revive somewhat of an enjoyment in playing with his old band … only to feel a sense of failure.

“In the end, his despair, anxiety from his first overseas trip; perception of failure in that he had let a lot of people down; and the fact he was in an unfamiliar mental health facility, a foreign environment all became too much and overwhelmed his ability to rise above it.”