I noticed the grief and trauma at Covid inquiry hearings – this mustn’t ever occur once more
As the raw emotion of the Covid-19 Inquiry draws to a close, Britain’s collective trauma must be used to stop this ever happening again, says the Mirror’s Health Editor Martin Bagot
Britain’s former Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave evidence at the Covid-19 Inquiry in west London(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The biggest public inquiry in British history came about after bereaved families demanded it.
Now after the Covid-19 Inquiry has heard from its final witness it is clear that so many lives were lost, shortened or worsened by how the country mishandled Covid-19.
Many of the bereaved now struggle with mental illness. Some have been diagnosed with PTSD. Tens of thousands of survivors live with Long Covid.
I have sat through its numerous hearings at Dorland House in London and heard how the Covid bereaved experience a special kind of grief without closure. They have used this anger to expose everything our leaders like Boris Johnson got so very wrong.
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On many occasions when politicians such as the Partygate Prime Minister and his hapless Health Secretary Matt Hancock were giving evidence, you could feel the raw emotion in the room. The strained faces of the bereaved families in the public gallery were evidence that they were listening to the most triggering testimony.
They have all endured a particular type of grief. Tens of thousands of families who lost loved ones were denied closure. Families described feeling like their family member was “kidnapped” and never seen again. They were not allowed to say goodbye. So many people died afraid and alone.
The inquiry has heard from 381 witnesses and on Wednesday the final one, Katherine Poole, told how she was unable to visit her father after he caught Covid. She explained: “His last words to me were ‘you won’t leave me will you?’ That will stay with me forever. Because I did leave him but not through my choice.”
Funerals as we know them were banned. Those grieving were often then prevented from seeing the body. Families described just asking for a photo of the body to confirm it was actually them in the body bag or coffin. Some spoke of sometimes wondering whether their loved one actually did die.
Many people’s mums, dads, husbands and wives would still be alive today if it were not for the incompetence and complacency of the government at that time.
Unfortunately Britain was being led by a Prime Minister least equipped to deal with such a generational crisis. Boris Johnson proudly told us all he was still shaking hands with people he met in hospitals – precisely at a time when government scientists were advising the opposite.
Despite his own brush with death after contracting the novel virus early in the pandemic, the Partygate PM blustered on, refusing to implement restrictions until it was too late. Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett explained how this meant that the ultimate restriction – in the form of a lockdown – became necessary.
Baroness Hallett’s advice to the next Prime Minister to be unfortunate enough to lead the country when we are hit by a pandemic is clear – act decisively so lockdowns do not become inevitable.
However most of the lessons of the inquiry are yet to be revealed. Baroness Hallett will now compile reports on eight of the ten modules are still to be published. Five of these are expected this year on healthcare systems, vaccines and therapeutics, procurement, the care sector and contact tracing.
The inquiry has already concluded that 48% of deaths during the first wave – 23,000 of people who died – could have been avoided if lockdown had been brought in just a week earlier.
Rivka Gottlieb, from north London, told the final hearing: “My father was one of those people who could have been saved had the lockdown happened a week earlier… I am haunted by the fact that he died alone and that we were not able to be with him.”
