PRESS RELEASE – 26 OCTOBER – JANE MORRISON OF SCOTTISH COVID BEREAVED TO GIVE EVIDENCE AT SCOTTISH COVID INQUIRY
PRESS RELEASE – 26TH OCOTBER 2023
JANE MORRISON OF SCOTTISH COVID BEREAVED TO GIVE EVIDENCE
AT THE SCOTTISH COVID-19 PUBLIC INQUIRY – 27TH OCTOBER 2023 AT 10AM
Jane will make a statement to the press once her evidence is complete at around 1pm
outside of the hearing centre – 126 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4HH.
The Inquiry can be viewed live via https://www.youtube.com/@covidinquirysco
Aamer Anwar- Lead Solicitor statement on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved
Jane Morrison, lead member of Scottish Covid Bereaved, is to give evidence to the Scottish Covid-19 Public Inquiry tomorrow, 27th October 2023 from 10:00am. Jane will provide an organisational statement on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved and an individual statement as to the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on her. Jane is 65 years old and lost her wife Jacqueline Morrison Hart, better known as Jacky, on 24th October 2020. She was in the Ninewells Hospital in Perth and Kinross Tayside. Jane and Jacky had had been together for 20 years.
The Inquiry will hear evidence as to the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on Jane:
“It still hurts that I couldn’t be with her when she was told she was dying. It was more traumatic for her than it was when she died. That was the way I thought that it would be that I wouldn’t be able to be with her at all. We had had what I thought was our last phone call which had been difficult because she was on CPAP so if she said anything, I couldn’t hear it at all. I’ll tell you, my guardian Angel was looking after me that night because I talked to some friends on the phone and I thought, well, this is it, you know, poor me and I poured a very big drink but I didn’t touch it. Thank God I didn’t because the hospital rang half an hour later and said, look, we’ve managed to find the side room on the Covid covered ward. You can go in there and be with her at the end, which was wonderful.”
Tomorrow, when Jane provides an operational statement on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved, the Inquiry will hear:
“As a group, we represent families of over 200 deceased individuals. They have the common goal of not wanting their loved one’s deaths to have been in vain. We want lessons to be learned to stop other people having to go through what we’ve been through, and we also feel that sharing our experiences, both good and bad, will be of great help to both inquiries in assisting them to establish what really happened and more importantly, enabling the preparation for the next pandemic to be more effective.
“As a group we want answers. We want to understand what went wrong and why it went wrong. More importantly, we want to see better procedures and systems and more humanity in place for the next pandemic because there will be one. Hopefully it won’t be until after the inquiry and people have had a chance to learn lessons, so I hope that people are going be already learning lessons and put new things in place.”
The Scottish Covid-19 Public Inquiry began its Health and Social Care Impact Hearing on Tuesday 24th October 2023 and heard two days of opening submissions from Core Participants of the Inquiry.
Our Aamer Anwar stated:
“The Scottish Covid Bereaved expect a public inquiry that listens to their voices and those of other core-participants who have lost so much, in doing so it will provide the foundations for an inquiry that delivers real change and accountability. That must be the legacy of the Scottish Inquiry.”
