Scottish Covid Inquiry Reveals Widespread Use Of DNRs

So far in the Scottish Covid Inquiry there has been much hand wringing about deleted texts and What’s app messages. There has also been an admittance that school closures, children wearing masks and travel bans were all politically motivated, and that science had nothing to do with their decision making.

Nicola Sturgeon visits a vaccination centre during the pandemic, in Barrhead, Scotland CREDIT: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

It has been revealed that Nicola Sturgeon’s government dismissed nurses concerns that the virus was air-borne and did little to protect vulnerable elderly people. Indeed Sturgeon has even been accused of faking tears at the Inquiry.

We have also learnt that there was a ‘Gold Command’ group (a special group Sturgeon used to make key decisions about the pandemic) which was kept secret from key ministers, including the finance minister. There have been no records kept of the meetings, nor of those of the Scottish Government Resilience Room (Sgorr) meetings. Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, said:

It becomes difficult to understand what the ultimate decision-making process was when there is no record of how those decisions were taken.

In May ex-nurse Lesley Roberts was removed from the Covid Inquiry’s witness list, a measure called “extrordianry”. The Labour Party’s deputy has said;

She brings unique experience as a nursing professional, and as someone who lost their elderly mother as a result of Covid. I hope that the inquiry will reconsider and invite her to speak and at the very least publish her written statement.

Lesley Roberts in her scrubs outside Inverclyde Royal Hospital and Labour's Jackie Baillie (inset) (Image: Daily Record/PA)

The former NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde nurse has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the inadequacy of PPE given to health and social care staff during the pandemic. She has also exposed the widespread use of Do Not Resuscitate forms.

In addition, and perhaps most notoriously, Ms Roberts and two fellow campaigners have reported Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman to Police Scotland for corporate manslaughter in relation to blunders made that cost people's lives – including the decision to move elderly people from hospitals to care homes in the early weeks of the pandemic.

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)

Were DNRs handed out unnecessarily?

At times resuscitation is inappropriate, like terminal cases. In that case DNRs can be appropriate. Speaking on the Neil Oliver Show Dr John Campbell said;

The key thing is they must always be done with the consent of the patient and in full discussion with the clinicians involved..[or power of attorney]...these are very serious documents...Only used when there is no realistic chance of a normal life after resuscitation.

A lot of evidence from the Scottish Inquiry shows there was widespread use of DNRs. Evidence has been presented of DNRs that have been signed by a doctor without the presence or permission of any advocate for the patient.

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Adam Stachura, Director of AGE Scotland, spoke to the Inquiry about a case whereby a veteran was handed out a type of DNR (DNACPR) by paramedics delivering it to his home. The clinician signing off cited communication difficulties as to why there was no patient consultation. The old man was hard of hearing. Stachura stated;

Even if it was the case that someone might face difficulties if they contracted COVID-19, why on earth is there a pre-emptive DNACPR? And particularly so with no discussion or any form of dignified process for the recipient. …. we had a sense that this was also be happening in care homes, where all residents were having DNACPR decisions issued in a blanket manner.

We also found examples of people who upon leaving hospital found DNACPR decisions in their discharge papers without any discussion having been had with them. The box was ticked which said they had had a discussion, where in fact none was. It was the end of May 2020.

Sara Redmond, chief development officer for Alliance - an umbrella body for charities and other not-for-profit organisations which support health and social care services - said it had received "concerning reports" around the period of the first national lockdown that patients and carers were receiving unsolicited requests from GP surgeries to sign DNR forms. She said that while people understood the need for anticipatory care planning, there was alarm over the sudden and improper use of DNRs.

Giving evidence on the fifth day of the inquiry in Edinburgh, Ms Redmond said:

There was one mum who shared an experience where she received this unsolicited request about her child. She was told that this form was going to be applied to her son and there would also be no hospital transport in the event that he needed support to save his life.

It was delivered to her pretty much as a cold call - extremely distressing and traumatising for her - and has really left her really questioning the support that is available for her and her son now and in the future.

Does this raise the prospect that there will be a change in their care, because they will be viewed as being on the way out? Many being heard at the Inquiry voiced feelings of being abandoned. Unfortunately this is the sort of thing that does go on in our strapped NHS.

Shall we make the connection to the decision to move elderly people from hospital into care homes and the widespread use of Midazolam, and other end of life drugs. Presumably purchased early in the plandemic to assist those expected to die from Covid and distributed in a peak in March/April 2020. Which just so happens to match a peak of Covid deaths.

I've covered this topic in more depth here.

Remember further, it was a requirement to put Covid on the death certificate if the person had tested positive. All adding to a cumulative death total. Add in the high amount of false positives from the tests and we can see how early on the circumstances convened to create a feedback loop of expectation, becoming and reported death.

Picutre showing NHS under crisis during the flu season of 2018

On his show Neil Oliver commented on the evidence about DNR’s use;

fresh testimony coming from the Covid Inquiry suggesting people were just being written off in advance...There seems to be a cold bloodedness, yet, even though we’re hearing this, I don’t understand why more people aren’t jumping up and down demanding to know the how and the why of all of this.

As a medical professional Dr Campbell discusses how blanket treatment was always going to be problematic. Mass DNRs signed off without dealing with people as human beings are one such example. During the plandemic we were all numbers making up graphs and pie charts.

At least at this inquiry voices are being heard from ordinary people. It’s going to be a huge body of evidence, one which can lead to further investigations. The BBC reported on one story of Gillian Grant whose Gran died in November 2020 and a DNR was found in her medical records. Revealing this practice must have continued throughout 2020. Naturally the care home can say it was just following orders.

You can say a mistake was made; believing this virus was going to result in mass need of hospital space and that services would need triaging and rationing out. Although I believe governments were led to believe it through policy advisors. Anyway, it looks like rapid (rushed?) decision making went on which, being politicians, was of a political character and little to do with science, or, as it turns out, health.