Covid Inquiry: ‘My mother died after hospital issued DNR order without telling us’

The second day of the inquiry’s hearings in Wales is focusing on the impact the pandemic had on different parts of society – Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

An 86-year-old Welsh retiree who died during the first weeks of the pandemic was given a do not resuscitate (DNR) order without her family being told, the Covid Inquiry has heard.

Elizabeth Grant told the inquiry that her mother, Betty, was given the partially completed DNR by an unnamed community hospital from where she was discharged two days before her death on April 19 2020.

The hospital had also issued another note which told doctors “not to transfer her to an acute hospital” in the case of illness.

Ms Grant, a member of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, said she only found out about the notes after making enquiries after her mother’s death and that she does not believe Betty, who had vascular dementia and arthritis, would have agreed to them.

“She wanted to feel that everyone would do everything for her,” Ms Grant said.

Her testimony came during the second day of the Covid Inquiry’s hearings in Wales which is focusing on the impact the pandemic had on different parts of society.

Government ‘caught with their trousers down’

Ms Grant also accused the Labour-run devolved Welsh Government of being “caught with their trousers down” over the testing of hospital patients before they were discharged into care homes.

The Welsh Government only made the policy compulsory on April 29 2020, two weeks after it was introduced in England on April 16.

The inquiry also heard from Amanda Provis, who’s mother and grandmother both died from Covid.

Ms Provis’s father, who was not named, was working as a hospital porter without personal protective equipment (PPE) in late March 2020 when he and Christine, his wife, both began to show Covid symptoms.

Christine, 61, died at home on April 7 2020, having been “too afraid” to go to hospital.

Lack of PPE for NHS staff

Ms Provis said she believes her mother – who had diabetes, chronic asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had had the majority of one of her lungs removed – would “still be with us” if the NHS had given all staff PPE from the start of the pandemic.

Maureen, 84, Ms Provis’s grandmother, died at the care home where she lived on Jan 29 2021 after she and a number of other residents had started to display Covid symptoms earlier that month.

She had been put into self-isolation at the facility but was only given paracetamol to treat her high temperature and was not taken to hospital, even though she had underlying diabetes, arthritis and pancreatitis.

“I know a doctor went there and all they were advised was paracetamol for any temperatures they had, but nothing else,” Ms Provis said.

The inquiry also heard from Prof Emmanuel Ogbonna, who was part of the Welsh Government’s Asian and Minority Ethnic Covid-19 Advisory Group, and Prof Debbie Foster, the author of a report into how Covid affected disabled people in Wales.

On Tuesday, it is also expected to hear from Helena Herklots CBE, the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, and Prof Sally Holland, the former children’s commissioner for Wales.

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