Jo Goodman on growing urgency for government inquiry into Covid-19 deaths
It’s been over three months since I last wrote for Chartist on our campaign for the Government to call an immediate statutory inquiry with a rapid review phase, such as the Taylor report just after Hillsborough.
Unfortunately, just like the families at Hillsborough, many of those bereaved through Covid-19 are feeling forgotten about by a Government who won’t even meet with us to learn the lessons from our tragedies and help save as many lives as possible.
We’ve written to the Prime Minister six times now and whilst he said publicly he would meet the group, he then backtracked a week later citing legal action (we haven’t started legal proceedings – we want to meet to avoid doing so) and now keeps saying he is meeting the bereaved. All the while, the almost 2,000 bereaved in our group feel more and more like the wrong sort of bereaved for him, simply because we have questions to ask.
What the Prime Minister seems to have failed to understand is that we aren’t going away and our campaign is getting bigger and louder.
When I last wrote we had pro-bono legal support. They’ve now been joined by other specialists giving their time for free. Numerous journalists are helping highlight our stories, and more and more people are offering their support, donating to our campaign and signing our petition.
I know many of those will be reading this and I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. In our moments of darkness and grief it is the kindness and decency of others that can help lift us.
We will continue to make sure that bereaved families and their needs are high on the agenda and will keep doing so until the Government finally does the right thing and listens.