Scottish COVID-19 inquiry 30 April 2025

Testimony by Fiona Arnott Barron from CRUSE.

Introduction

Fiona Arnott Barron is the Chief Executive Officer for Cruse Scotland. Cruse Scotland has been supporting bereaved adults, children and young people across Scotland for over 60 years.

Once again evidence is submitted exposing the threat posed by ‘COVID-19’ is not quite what the public has been led to believe…?

‘‘There was a significant drop in referral numbers in April-June 2020 (520), then it steadily builds as the year progresses to 2,380. The 2019-2020 comparison was 4,261 referrals.’’

-Paragraph 37 of statement

…and more proof of unarguable egregious lockdown policy harms.

‘‘I think the restrictions caused the greatest impacts on our service users. They removed people's ability to choose. People were not able to be with their loved ones at the end of their lives within a care setting. I find it difficult to articulate just how much people struggled with that.’’

-Paragraph 40

Testimony highlights

• Bereavement referalls down during peak pandemic 2020 vs pre pandemic.

• '‘COVID-19’ third most common cause of death in 2020.

• ‘Huge anger’ not being allowed to grieve normally as politicians broke the rules.

• Families unable to give the deceased an appropriate ‘send off’.

• Client need now ‘phenomenal’ with serious mental health impacts.

‘‘Between April and June 2020 we had so few referrals coming in it was like nothing we’d seen before.’’

‘‘There was huge anger..people not being able to be with the person who was dying…there was alot of anger about politicians that hadn’t adhered to the restrictions.’’

‘‘I think it’s fair to say for mental health..for most people it was like somebody turned the volume up.’’

Statement highlights

‘‘Pre COVID-19, our top three death referrals were those bereaved by cancer, heart conditions, and suicide. These have been the top three causes of death since the beginning of our service. From March 2020 until the end of 2021, COVID-19 overtook suicide as the third most common causes of death for which clients sought our support.’’

-Paragraph 31

‘‘As of today, the list of people waiting for access to our services is bigger it has ever been.’’

-Paragraph 36

‘‘People were affected more significantly by loneliness, and they lost hope. We continue to support people who found themselves alone and isolated because of the covid restrictions.’’

-Paragraph 41

‘‘People were very lonely and isolated. They had nowhere to go and nobody to see. They only had the thoughts of loss that they had just endured.’’

-Paragraph 43

‘‘In some people's case, in addition to their grief, they had political opinions about COVID-19 responses. Some believed in conspiracy theories that suggested that COVID-19 was make believe and a way for the government to impose unnecessary restrictions.’’

-Paragraph 44

‘‘The impact of family and friends not being able to go in and out of the homes of bereaved people had an enormous impact. The inability to hug or provide in person support to bereaved people left them feeling very lost.’’

-Paragraph 54

‘‘Some people felt guilty because they had broken the rules in order to be there for a loved one. The restrictions posed a real moral dilemma. Some people felt remorse because they were convinced that they had passed COVID-19 on to a loved one and potentially caused their death.’’

-Paragraph 55

‘‘The restrictions removed people's ability to choose what kind of send-off they wanted to give their loved one. That was very upsetting for them.’’

-Paragraph 58

‘‘Families had to make some difficult decisions about who was permitted to visit a dying person, and who was allowed to attend their funeral. Lots of families were divided and had fall outs because of those restrictions and that bad feeling, at such a significant time, will never be forgotten.’’

-Paragraph 59

‘‘That one size fits all approach to PPE and pandemic protocols is not necessary or effective and in fact is a waste of resource. A staged approach should be considered as part of preparation for future response.’’

-Paragraph 94

Thanks for reading.

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