A widow whose wife died after contracting Covid in hospital has described the "vast differences" in infection control procedures between wards and the harrowing decisions that loved ones had to make at the height of the pandemic.
Jane Morrison told the UK Covid inquiry that her wife, Jacky, had been in hospital for 15 days to undergo investigations for jaundice when she first developed a fever, and tested positive for Covid.
She died five days later, aged 49, in October 2020.
Mrs Morrison, who went on to found the Scottish Covid Bereaved group, was the first person from Scotland to give personal testimony to the inquiry describing how the disease affected her and other relatives who lost loved ones in the pandemic.
Mrs Morrison said: " 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.
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"Once her liver had failed there was nothing they could do.
"They told her and myself that she wasn't a candidate for ICU and intubation, and told us both that she was dying."
Mrs Morrison told how she was allowed to sit with her wife in hospital when she passed away but was subsequently required to isolate for 14 days, during which time she had to return her wife's guide dog to a charity for the blind and have the couple's sick border terrier put to sleep.
Mrs Morrison added: "Our remaining wee dog, who was Jacky's shadow, effectively had a doggy breakdown because 75% of her companionship had disappeared.
"All of this was going on at the same time. This was in the space of a week, so it was very difficult to be isolated."
Mrs Morrison told the inquiry that restricted funeral arrangements had been a "very, very big concern" among members of the Scottish Covid Bereaved group, adding that people were "often told by hospitals you have a choice: you can either come in and be with [your loved one] at the end, or you can go to the funeral, but you can't do both because you have to be in isolation".
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In addition Mrs Morrison said many of the people in the group had experienced poor communication from hospital staff about what was happening to their relatives, and why.
She said: "There were far too many people who were left very upset and confused as to why their loved one was not eligible for intubation or CPR, because those conversations either weren't held or if they were held they were very brief over the phone, and the relatives did not feel able to ask questions because it all seemed to be very hurried.
"We have one example where the next of kin was told immediately on admission that her husband was not a candidate for ICU or intubation, and she doesn't know why."
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Mrs Morrison said the breakdown in Covid infection control procedures was an issue "particularly close to my heart" because it was obvious that her wife had been exposed to the virus after admission.
She noted that when her group's membership were last surveyed, 9% had lost a relative to Covid in care homes but 26% had lost their loved one following a hospital-acquired Covid infection.
Between March 2020 and the end of June 2022, there were 2,746 deaths in Scotland among people who had "probably" or "definitely" caught Covid in hospital, based on the timing of their positive sample.
Mrs Morrison said: "I witnessed with my own eyes on several occasions, patients who had left the wards and were meeting up with friends and family groups in the hospital grounds with no social distancing and no masks, and then they returned to the ward without even using the hand gel and in many cases not even wearing masks once back in the ward because some wards were more relaxed about patients wearing masks.
"Everybody else had to, but not always the patients.
"There's vast differences between different health boards on infection control and sometimes different hospitals within health boards had different procedures.
"But what is really surprising is different wards within a hospital had different procedures, and if they were moving patients around because of a lack of beds some patients were being taken to wards where infection control protocols were less.
"For example, visitors weren't made to wear PPE when they entered the ward.
"Often they were wheeled through the hospital and, because they were a patient, they didn't have to wear a mask."
Matthew Fowler, a co-founder of the UK-wide group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, whose father Ian died in April 2020, also gave evidence.
He said members of the group had faced a "vast amount of criticism" and "vitriolic attacks" on social media, and in person.
Mr Fowler said: "This is something that I think all of the bereaved [in our group] have been subjected to over the course of the last three years...that attitude of Covid denial or Covid scepticism, anti-mask protesters, and vaccine sceptics.
"Those people have often targeted me or members of the group I represent.
"Sometimes they've gone out of the way to seek people out.
"We've had people making media appearances talking about their loss who've then been stalked via social media and abused and, in some cases, threatened.
"Had my Dad died of something else - say cancer - people wouldn't be coming to me saying 'well, was it really cancer?'.
"It's something that has been unique to our loss to be targeted in this way."
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