Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 March 2022
I absolutely agree. To clarify my intervention to the minister, I say that we are shutting such people out of our care homes. The care home manager who got in touch asked that we end testing not because she was cavalier about the virus but because she could not abide the restrictions coming in again and again and blocking people from offering the care that they give.
How we have dealt with care homes over the pandemic has been staggering. As coronavirus started to take hold in Scotland, in the foothills of the pandemic people with it were moved from hospitals into homes, which caused the deaths of many. We can contrast that with the latter stages of the pandemic when, as we have heard countless times, many people who had been triple vaccinated were still prevented from visiting their loved ones—in some cases, during the last weeks and days of their lives, when they needed them most. That is demonstrably, starkly and tragically the case as we have heard many times, such as in the case of Anne, in honour of whom the law would be named.
My party whole-heartedly supports the motion in the name of Jackie Baillie. It is vital that either the Scottish Government introduces a bill or that we do it through the private member’s bill process, instead.
If I may, I will finish with the words of Anne’s husband. In a letter that he penned following her death, he said:
“For seven months they literally kept us from being with you. You endured the humiliation of being viewed outside from two metres when you needed and required close touching and hugging. And someone close enough to whisper, ‘I love you.’”
It is my sincere hope that the Government listens to Anne’s story and to countless others’ heartbreaking stories, and that it makes the changes that are necessary to ensure that no one is ever again denied the right to be with a person whom they love—to simply hold their hand, kiss their cheek and give them a hug.