Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry|Health and social care|7 December 2023(morning session)

Testimony by Jan Gillan from the Scottish COVID Bereaved.

NB: Still working my way through some 2023 testimonies i missed. The amount of material available and going unreported never ceases to amaze.

Introduction

Jan Gillan was an experienced support teacher for children with extreme behavioural issues. She no longer works due to the impact of losing her husband of 37 years who sadly passed away 27th April 2020 aged just 53 years old. The cause of death was recorded as Covid 19 as well as his underlying health conditions which we're pernicious anemia and asthma.

‘‘As a family, we are still so anxious about Covid 19 and still wear masks every day, wipe everything down, sanitise supermarket trolleys and no longer use public transport. We also will only do shopping if it's early in the morning as there's less people around.’’

‘‘If people are at the house, workmen or people we know, we ask them not to touch anything, sit in a seat we can sanitize and we ask that they don't drink from our cups etc. We have also experienced ridicule from other members of the public shouting at us for still wearing our masks.’’

-Paragraphs 83-84 of statement

‘‘We all still live in fear of Covid as it's still out there.’’

-Paragraph 92 of statement

Testimony highlights

Ms.Gillan explains she and her family are still terrified of COVID with her children requiring medication to cope.

‘‘To this day, drinking water, opening doors, the amount of people in this room SCARES ME..TERRIFIES ME…i don’t use public transport.’’

‘‘I’ve been ridiculed for wearing masks. I still sanitise..even when i was offered coffee there, no.. cos i won’t drink out of the cups..i still social distance..when people come close i move back.’’

Funeral

Abnormal restrictions placed upon the funeral caused alot of stress and tension and grief for the family. After her husband’s death Ms.Gillan took time off work for health reasons and was shockingly then fired from her role at Glasgow City Council.

‘‘I couldn’t function or get out of bed most days…everything was done over the phone…Glasgow City council sacked me 20 months after i lost Mark.’’

Statement highlights

‘‘Going forward, I believe that borders should be closed faster and that we should listen to the countries who had less deaths. We should look at what they did during the pandemic and learn from that.’’

-Paragraph 95

‘‘The Government should make plans, practice them, execute them well and check regularly to see if they're working. Vaccination programmes should be sped up and we should combat it in every way possible.’’

-Paragraph 96

End

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