The haunting words of families bereaved by Covid were today laid bare in a damning report that found ministers 'failed their citizens’ with flawed planning.
In the inquiry’s first report, Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the probe, warned the Government had failed to prepare the UK for an 'entirely foreseeable’ pandemic, making the human economic toll worse than it could have been.
At least 235,000 Brits are thought to have been killed by the virus since the pandemic began, with further fatalities caused by the disruption to the NHS and regulars screening for health issues like cancer.
Setting out a list of recommendations for the new Labour Government, the 240-page document also saw families tell how their loved ones were treated 'almost like toxic waste’.
Others were told to choose between being with them in their final moments or attending their funeral. Another was even given their late father’s hospital belongings 'in a Tesco carrier bag’.
In the inquiry’s first report, Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the probe, warned the Government had failed to prepare the UK for an 'entirely foreseeable’ pandemic, making the human economic toll worse than it could have been
Speaking about her 49-year-old late wife Jacky (left) who lost her life to Covid in 2020, Jane Morrison (right), lead member of the Scottish Covid Bereaved said: 'It was actually five days from the onset of Covid until she died. 'In that time the Covid destroyed her lungs, her kidneys, her liver and her pancreas’
Meanwhile, recalling the death of his father Ian in April 2020, Matt Fowler (centre), co-founder of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice, said: 'Dad was an incredibly popular man, and it was a source of great pain for everybody that knew him that they would not be able to attend his funeral’
Speaking about her 49-year-old late wife Jacky who lost her life to Covid in 2020, Jane Morrison, lead member of the Scottish Covid Bereaved said: 'It was actually five days from the onset of Covid until she died.
’In that time the Covid destroyed her lungs, her kidneys, her liver and her pancreas.
’They tried to give her dialysis, but the Covid had made her blood so thick and sticky that it actually blocked the dialysis machine … they told her and myself that she wasn’t a candidate for ICU [intensive care unit] and intubation and told us both that she was dying, and there was nothing, sadly, that they could do to help her.’
She added: 'It was the terrible decisions you had to make about who could go and who couldn’t, and of course if someone had been with their loved one at the end, they were often told by some hospitals, „You have a choice: you can either come in and be with them at the end or you can go to the funeral, but you can’t do both, because you have to be in isolation”.’
Meanwhile, recalling the death of his father Ian in April 2020, Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice, said: 'Dad was an incredibly popular man, and it was a source of great pain for everybody that knew him that they would not be able to attend his funeral.
’Only ten people were allowed there on the day, all had to be socially distanced, due to those limitations, and as an illustration of how popular my dad was and the impact that he had on the people around him, over 300 people lined the streets for the procession.’
He added: 'In my dad’s case, we were offered the chance to have a phone call – I say a phone call, a video call with my dad in hospital to say our goodbyes, which is something that I didn’t take the hospital up on, as that’s not how I want to remember my dad.
’Some of the last photos I had of him are him sitting in his hospital bed wearing his oxygen mask and I would prefer not to remember him like that and instead to remember him how he was in life.’
The inquiry’s first report today concluded it had ’no hesitation’ that the 'processes, planning and policy of the civil contingencies structures within the UK government and devolved administrations and civil services failed their citizens’.
Lady Hallett said the failure to plan properly led to more deaths and a greater cost to the economy.
’Had the UK been better prepared for and more resilient to the pandemic, some of that financial and human cost may have been avoided,’ she added.
Families, communities and businesses were torn apart by a series of paralysing lockdowns ministers brought it in an attempt to curb Covid’s spread.
Preparedness for a civil emergency must now be treated in 'much the same way as we treat a hostile state’, she recommended.
Responsibility for the strategy fell to three successive health secretaries: Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt, who was in charge from 2012 to 2018, and Matt Hancock, who health secretary during the pandemic.
The report questioned the failure of ministers, including former chancellor Mr Hunt, the longest serving health secretary in modern times, to challenge 'group think’ that overlooked the threat from a coronavirus, such as Covid.
Recalling the death of her father Ian, Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees, co-leader of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, told the inquiry: 'Something that was not communicated to us was that once somebody with Covid dies, they are almost treated like toxic waste.
’They are zipped away and you – nobody told us that you can’t wash them, you can’t dress them, you can’t do any of those things, the funerals, the ceremonies, you just can’t do any of those.
’You couldn’t sing at a funeral. You know, we’re Welsh, that’s something you have to do.’
She added: 'My dad did not have a good death. Most of our members’ loved ones did not have a good death … when we left the hospital, my dad – we were given my dad’s stuff in a Tesco carrier bag.
’Some people were given somebody else’s clothes that were in a pretty awful state.
Recalling the death of her father Ian, Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees, co-leader of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, told the inquiry: 'Something that was not communicated to us was that once somebody with Covid dies, they are almost treated like toxic waste’
The report also saw the daughter of the first woman to die in Northern Ireland with Covid share how her family was initially told the virus would be a 'flash in the pan and gone by summer’. Brenda Doherty (right), one of the group leads of Northern Ireland Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: 'When we took mummy up into the hospital, there was very limited — just a plastic apron on staff, and my sister actually asked about Covid, and we were told not to worry, it would be a flash in the pan and gone by the summer’
’It’s those things like that that don’t often get considered … there is such a thing as a good death, and I think that was very overlooked during the pandemic.
’There is a whole generation, my mum’s generation, who haven’t got the mechanisms like maybe I have to complain and question, and they are heartbroken and really in shock.
’You know, my mum cries daily and — even though it’s nearly three years … it’s just — they’re just left with that feeling of nobody cared.’
The report also saw the daughter of the first woman to die in Northern Ireland with Covid share how her family was initially told the virus would be a 'flash in the pan and gone by summer’.
Brenda Doherty, one of the group leads of Northern Ireland Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: 'When we took mummy up into the hospital, there was very limited — just a plastic apron on staff, and my sister actually asked about Covid, and we were told not to worry, it would be a flash in the pan and gone by the summer.
’I am here to remind everybody of the human cost that we paid as bereaved people. My mummy was not cannon fodder.
’My mummy was a wonderful wee woman who had the spirit of Goliath, and I know she’s standing here with me today, because she would want me to be here, because she knows that she lived a life, as did all our loved ones, and it’s very important that we remember the human cost, because there are too many people out there now that think Covid has gone away.
’People are still losing their life to Covid.’
This module of the inquiry, examining pandemic preparations before Covid struck, was held 23 days of public hearings held in central London during June and July last year.
Other modules include examining the decision-making process in the pandemic across the UK, impact of Covid in British healthcare systems, vaccines, PPE procurement, the care sector, the pandemic’s effect on children and the economy.
