UK COVID-19 inquiry|30 Jul 2025

Moving testimony by Gregory McQuitty. Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Northern Ireland.

NB: Contains harrowing details. An extremely short session of just 17 minutes. Bereaved families really given no time in comparison to officialdom.

Introduction

Gregory McQuitty is providing an account about that relates primarily to the care of his father Ivor who lived with dementia in a private care home. He sadly died from ‘COVID’ on the 2nd May 2020 aged 84 years old.

‘My father was admitted to hospital on 19" April 2020 and died in hospital on 2nd May 2020…

..We don't really know the circumstances of his death. The hospital phoned us when he was admitted to say that he had Covid but we don't know what happened when he was there..

..We don't know whether he was ventilated or received any treatment or anything like that. We don't know how bad he was with it.’’

‘‘No one phoned us to say that we could come and be with him in his final moments. Someone from the hospital just phoned us on 2nd May and said that he had passed away.’’

-Paragraph 16 of statement

‘‘We hadn't seen my father for so long and then when it came to bury him it was just a few minutes, get out quickly and go back home. It felt like a dream, it wasn't real…

..It was so strange to treat a human that way, like a bit of garbage that you lift and flick in the bin.’’

-Paragraph 17 of statement

Testimony highlights

• Harrowing introduction.

‘‘I’ve never really talked about this before.’’

Visiting restrictions

• Loved hugging his grandchildren but this was taken away.

• Sudden care home closure. No notification for family.

• Father was never seen alive again.

Medical records

• Falls in care home led to hospital admission.

• Unreported incidents to family.

‘‘The home is supposed to ring you in an emergency…they contacted me four times and on the medical records he attended accident and emergency NINETEEN.’’

Cause of death

• Family unsure as to cause of death after receiving death certificate.

• Heart failure and or lack of resuscitation (DNACPR) could be to blame not COVID.

‘‘We were listening to the professor earlier and he said about the CPR..we don’t know now did his heart stop..did his heart failure kill him..did they do CPR..did the COVID kill him?’’

‘‘There is so many unanswerd questions..you just don’t know.’’

Funeral arrangements

• Abnormal.

• Police were out enforcing the lockdown.

‘‘There was nothing near normal. Not a thing about it was normal really.’’

‘‘Everybody just had to go home the moment the minister finished the service.’’

‘‘It was just shocking.’’

Statement highlights

Before lockdown visiting

‘‘Although he had Alzheimer's and dementia he knew who we all were and he loved getting visits. Whenever we came through the door with the grandchildren he just beamed a big smile. The grandchildren all got hugs going in and all got hugs going out. My father loved everyone and everyone got on well with him.’’

-Paragraph 3

After lockdown.

‘‘When Covid hit, the home closed to families…We were checking on my father's house which is near to the home and then we called to see him at the home but the door was shut and we did not get in. After that, i did not see my father again other than seeing the coffin we buried him in.’’

-Paragraph 4

‘‘There was never any mention of Covid when we spoke to the home until after my father contracted Covid.’’

-Paragraph 7

‘‘Phonecalls were not possible because he was deaf in both ears and remote contact would not have worked either but there was no suggestion of outdoor contact or seeing him through the window or anything like that. All contact with my father just stopped.’’

-Paragraph 8

‘‘On 8th April 2020 the home phoned me to tell me that my father had had a fall and had to go into hospital. He needed to go to the toilet but no one answered his calls and he was not able to get up himself to go to the toilet because of the rail. He must have needed to go to the toilet and then he must have fallen trying to get out of bed himself. No one ever told us how he fell so cannot be sure that this happened but i keep thinking it must have been that.’’

-Paragraph 9

‘‘My father went to hospital in the ambulance and got an x-ray. He was bruised up one side but nothing was broken and the hospital just sent him back to the home. ‘‘

-Paragraph 10

‘‘There was no proper service, just 10 minutes at the graveside, and then everybody had to disperse. There were no handshakes.’’

-Paragraph 17

‘‘Afterwards, we never got anything back from the hospital. Everything that he had brought to the hospital - his facecloth, razor, clothes, washbag, were all destroyed.’’

-Paragraph 19

‘‘It was a good while before we got the death certificate. It said that he died of Covid-19 and Heart Failure. No one has ever explained the Heart Failure to us, whether this was part of Covid-19 or whether it was something else.’’

-Paragraph 21

‘‘There is no doubt in my mind that the visiting restrictions must have had a terrible impact on my father. Whenever we came through the door with the grandchildren he was just beaming and all smiles. To go from that to nothing and nobody must have been terrible. He must have been wondering "where is everybody". I find that very hard to think about.’’

-Paragraph 23

‘‘I didn't even get to see my father. He must have been terrified. I think about him wondering where we had all gone and why were we not visiting. I think about them trying to put a mask on him and how he would have felt. It doesn't bear thinking about.’’

-Paragraph 25

‘‘I just feel angry at how everything was taken out of our hands. It was clinical and nothing personal whatsoever. It was like he meant nothing.’’

-Paragraph 26

Media

There was a report of this session at BBC online.

Thanks for your attention.

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