9. Ms Marion Reynolds

MS MARION REYNOLDS (sworn).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 2C

Lady Hallett: I hope you haven’t felt you’ve had to wait

a long time to get to this stage.

Ms Dobbin: Can I ask you to give your full name to

the Inquiry, please.

Ms Marion Reynolds: My name’s Marion Reynolds.

Lead 2C: Thank you for providing a witness statement to the Inquiry. I think you have that in front of you, don’t you?

Ms Marion Reynolds: I have.

Lead 2C: And I think if you just look at the very back of it, I think you signed it on 26 February 2024. Is that right?

Ms Marion Reynolds: That’s correct.

Lead 2C: Are you happy for that evidence to stand as your evidence in this Inquiry?

Ms Marion Reynolds: I am, my Lady.

Lead 2C: And is it true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Ms Marion Reynolds: It is.

Lead 2C: Okay.

Now, I think you’ve already sent a message saying that I need to keep my voice up, so I’ll do my best to do that, but if at any point you can’t hear me, please just say; okay?

I think it’s right, Ms Reynolds, that you’re here to give evidence on behalf of the Northern Ireland Covid Bereaved Families for Justice, and also in your own right as well to talk about your experiences. Is that correct?

Ms Marion Reynolds: That’s correct.

Lead 2C: All right.

I’m just going to ask you maybe a bit about yourself before I move on to do that.

Could you tell the Inquiry a little bit about your professional experience? I think you had a long career in social care; is that right?

Ms Marion Reynolds: That’s correct.

My Lady, I started life off as a family and childcare social worker and moved through that into management, and then in 1992 I moved to the Department of Health as a Social Services inspector inspecting children’s facilities and also providing policy advice on children’s social services.

I left the department in December 2005 to join the Eastern Board as the deputy director of family and childcare services and I remained there until September of 2009 when I left because of the review of public administration and for 13 years after that I worked as an independent social work consultant.

Lead 2C: Ms Reynolds, do you think that that background was helpful to you, as it were, in navigating the care of your aunt, which we’ll come to very shortly?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Well, technically it should have, in the sense that I knew the system very well, and not only did I know the system but I knew a lot of the people personally that I had worked with them over my professional life, but it didn’t really make any difference to my ability to effect change or to get the sort of service for my aunt that I thought she needed.

Lead 2C: All right. And do you think that your background meant that you approached the care of your aunt with a degree of realism or an understanding of how systems work in reality, in terms of care and –

Ms Marion Reynolds: Well, I would have been – I’m a bit of a pragmatist anyway, and I knew what my aunt’s needs were, and up until she fractured her hip, she lived independently in the community, she required some support and that was provided through a lady that we’d bought private care from, and also myself going down twice a week. So I knew her situation very well, I knew her personality, I knew what she liked and what she didn’t like and I knew what she would do and what she wouldn’t do, and when my aunt didn’t want to do something, she wouldn’t do it, simple as that. Five foot nothing and a will of steel, and that was her. And she had, because she was profoundly deaf, and she lip-read, and she was very proficient at that, and so when she went – when Covid started and she had carers coming in after she fractured her hip and they were wearing masks, she couldn’t lip-read, and she kept saying to them “take the mask off, take the mask off” and of course they couldn’t because they were required to wear the mask.

So then when she went into hospital –

Lead 2C: Ms Reynolds, sorry, forgive me, I am just going to stop you there because you’ve jumped ahead a wee bit in time and I just wanted to make sure I’d introduced this properly, just about what happened to Marion. I hope you don’t mind, is it all right to call her Marion when I ask the questions?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yes.

Lead 2C: So I think it’s right and I think as you’ve just said in March 2020 she hurt her hip and she ended up in hospital. And I think as you’ve said, there were concerns then about her ability to communicate with people, because of the fact of wearing masks, and the lack of mitigation around that. Is that right?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yes. I think at that stage we were allowed to visit, so it wasn’t so bad, because we were able to go in and out.

Lead 2C: Yes.

Ms Marion Reynolds: And it was just over time the visiting became more curtailed, and that just became a problem, because my aunt had a long-standing eating problem. Now, this is not a problem of old age, this was the whole way through her life. She needed to know who made the food, who handled the food. And so when we were able to get in every day, we were able to bring food and to make sure she had nourishment.

As the Covid pandemic continued, the amount of contact we were allowed reduced from daily to once a week, and then stopped completely. So we had no mechanism to go in and to make sure she got nourishment or that she was getting liquids, and that was a source of concern. And when we phoned either the hospital or the care home, they all told us that they couldn’t get her to eat, they couldn’t get her to take her tablets, and I kept saying “Well, look, I’m happy to go down and she will eat with encouragement if we’re there” because I would have been bringing food and she would have been happy about that. But that was never accepted as a – you know, as a possibility.

Lead 2C: I’m just going to stop you there, because I think it’s right that Marion, after she was in hospital, did she go home for a bit?

Ms Marion Reynolds: She did. She was in the hospital, she had her hip fracture repaired, then she went for rehabilitation and she got home. And when she got home she was on a package of carers four times a day and my brother and I took turns to stay overnight with her, really to try and get her back into living independently in the community, and the lady that we had previously paid to go in to help, she augmented that. So we were quite satisfied that she was getting the level of care that she needed. So unfortunately she then took pneumonia in September.

Lead 2C: Yes.

Ms Marion Reynolds: And the GP had her admitted to hospital, and then when she was in hospital at that stage a few days, or maybe five days after she was admitted, they phoned me to say she’d tested positive for Covid.

Lead 2C: Yes.

Ms Marion Reynolds: Now, she hadn’t Covid when she was admitted, but she did have pneumonia. She recovered from that, and then – do you want me to go on with this story?

Lead 2C: So I think the next thing that happened then to Marion was that the hospital wanted to discharge her home; is that right?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yeah.

Lead 2C: Although she was in quite a weak condition?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yeah. Well, I got a phone call from the senior social worker saying to me they were going to discharge auntie Marie that day. Now, at that time I myself had Covid and I really wasn’t very well, and I said “No, she can’t go home because I’m not there to augment the care and the carers four times a day would be insufficient to manage her needs”, and the social worker was insistent and I said “Well, look, I have the keys of her house”, and she said “It’s all right, we’ll get a locksmith and open the house up to discharge her to it” and I said “My auntie’s house is my house, I bought it for her when she wanted to move to Bangor, so you can’t change the locks” and she said “Well, are you prepared to tell your aunt that you won’t let her go home?” And I said “I am more than happy to do that” because my aunt would know I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t for her good.

So at that stage –

Lead 2C: Just take your time.

Ms Marion Reynolds: The social worker then backed down, and if I hadn’t been ill I would have reported her to NISCC because I thought her attitude was uncaring, she wasn’t putting my aunt’s needs first, I though it was really quite cruel and she told me that this other elderly gentleman in the same position as my aunt had been discharged and I said “Well, he’s not my responsibility but my aunt is”.

So that night, now, it was a winter’s night, it was raining, it was bitterly cold, and they transferred my aunt from the Ulster Hospital to the Downe Hospital.

Now, whether or not I’m right or not, I don’t know, I thought it was punitive in the sense that I had stood up to them and said “She’s not going home and that’s the end of it”. This could be me just being absolutely paranoid and I accept that, but to transfer an elderly lady late into the night, if not into the early hours of the morning, on a cold, wet winter’s night I thought was unnecessary, unkind, and really said very little about the compassion that was given to my aunt.

Lead 2C: I think it’s right that after that Marion went to another hospital and then she was transferred to a care home, wasn’t she?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yes. She – I was never allowed to see her in that hospital at all, and I did go down and talk to the social worker and we were trying to get her into – because she needed some rehabilitation more than could be provided at home, so we were trying to get her into a care home which was a very small care home that we would have been happy with for a short period of time. So what happened was she then phoned me and said “Your aunt isn’t being discharged to that care home, she has to be discharged to Comber Care Home because she tested positive for Covid within 28 days” and I said “It must be very close on the 28 days” and she said “It’s 27 days”, so she was transferred to this care home that had a wing for Covid patients, and I wasn’t allowed to see her there either, despite my best efforts.

Now, when my aunt was in hospital, I was making phone calls to different people to try and see her. It wasn’t that I only started when she went into the care home. But when she was in the Downe Hospital, I was trying. So when she went to the Comber Care Home, we phoned every day, and every day we got the message “She’s not eating and she’s not taking her tablets” and every day we were saying “Look, one of us is happy to go down and help”, but we were never allowed.

Lead 2C: I think, Ms Reynolds, you said that at some stage you realised that maybe other people were being allowed visits but you couldn’t quite understand why that wouldn’t apply to you?

Ms Marion Reynolds: One day when I was going by and there was a lady – just as I parked my car, this lady got out and she walked into the front door of the home. Now, we weren’t allowed to go through the front door of the home, we had to go round to the window and do window visits, so one of the staff was coming out and I heard her greet the lady by her name, and she said to her “Oh, just go on up”. So I thought she must be allowed a visit, why am I not allowed a visit? Well, coincidentally with that one of the staff at the Down Lisburn Trust had told me about Care Partners and that was the first I’d heard of that. Now, Care Partners came out in the September. I was always entitled to see my aunt in that care home, and they never informed me of my right. Now, that meant that for the last number of weeks of my aunt’s life, there could have been a family visit, and she never was given it.

Lead 2C: So I think what you’ve said in your statement, Ms Reynolds, was that you could see your aunt Marie through the window but you weren’t allowed –

Ms Marion Reynolds: No, and one of the – the Department of Health provided additional funding to care homes to enable them to make provision for families to visit.

Now, my aunt’s younger sister, who was 86, I would have taken her with me sometimes to visit, and we had to go to a window to visit, and outside they hadn’t even put a paving stone down; we had to stand on wet grass. Now, for me a paving stone is a minimal cost, they were provided with significant resources to facilitate family visits, and they weren’t chased. And auntie Marie, when we would be at the window visit, she was in the bed which is at the opposite side of the room, she could see us, she couldn’t hear what we were saying and she kept waving to us to come in, and we were busy saying “We’re not allowed, we’re not allowed” and in fact we would have been allowed if they had implemented the guidance. And I’m sure she couldn’t understand, why are this pair out in this window in November, and not getting in, and, I mean, why, when there was guidance that would have let us in?

Lead 2C: I think is it right that you did eventually get to see her at some point?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yeah.

Lead 2C: You were allowed in. Can you just tell us then how you found her, Ms Reynolds, when you did get to see her?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Well, when I got in to see her, she was lying in bed with clothes on that weren’t her clothes. Now, my aunt was a very snappy, fussy dresser, and, and these clothes that she was wearing didn’t even fit. But anyhow, her clothes were in a cupboard in the plastic bags that she’d been discharged from hospital with. She was very dehydrated. I had brought a flask of tea and some sandwiches with me, and when she drank – she wouldn’t talk to me when I first arrived but once I gave her the tea she was hydrated and we had a conversation, and she wasn’t prepared to eat anything, and – but in the corner of the room, if you imagine a long narrow room, the bed’s at the top, just beside the door, and at the bottom of the room where the window is that we could see her in through, there was a wash hand basin with a side drainer and on the side drainer were – my aunt liked pastries, and I had brought pastries and bottles of lemonade every time I had gone down, so there were all these 3-litre bottles of lemonade, and stacked high all the boxes of pastries, some of them now out of date. I’d also left Bacofoil little packets of sandwiches for her. Some of those were still in front of her hospital tray, some of them open, some of them not open, but some of them were out of date. So I was really terribly dissatisfied with what I saw, and so I went to see the officer in charge, and I expressed my alarm, that nobody even told me to stop bringing things because they were just piling up, that her clothes hadn’t been emptied, and in my opinion she was actually dying, I said “She’s dying before my eyes”, and the officer in charge said “Well, the doctor doesn’t say that”. So I said “Well, in my view, she’s dying before my eyes”. Very stupidly I didn’t say “When did the doctor see her?” because I don’t believe – her own GP I don’t think saw her when she was admitted to hospital in the September with pneumonia, and I don’t think any doctor had seen her since she was discharged from the Downe Hospital.

But anyway, I was convinced she was nearing death, so between my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew, we just took a rota, and for the next three days we just took turns. Now, we could get in and out of that wing that they had for Covid patients without going anywhere near the rest of the home. So there never would have been a reason why we couldn’t have got in anyway.

So three days later she died.

Lead 2C: Yes.

Ms Marion Reynolds: And, I mean, in my opinion, I wouldn’t have seen many people die, to be honest with you, but people working in care homes would have. They must have been in a better position than I ever would have been to judge that my aunt was nearing the end of her life, and I just felt the care – it had become – individuals were treated as objects of concern rather than as people with needs, as individuals with their own unique way of living, and I felt that was lost.

Lead 2C: And I think, Ms Reynolds, what you say in your statement is that after your aunt Marie died there was a number of other concerns that you had and one of those was around the certification of her death; is that correct?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yes, so when my aunt died, I phoned – my aunt had already arranged much of her funeral herself, she had told me which undertaker she had wanted to go to, she had prepared a funeral service, the only thing that needed to be filled in was her date of death, and she told me “If you tell them my date of birth, I’ll come back and haunt you”, she would never tell anyone her age, so she had – just had to put in her date of death. When I phoned the undertaker he said “Now, you’ll need to get her death certificate”. So when my parents died, I know the undertaker did all these sort of things, so anyway I thought, well.

So I phoned the GP who is a terribly nice man and I have every confidence in, so I let him know that my aunt had died and he said “Well, what do you think she died of, Marion?” And I said well, really fragility of old age, then she had the hip fracture and then she had the Covid, then she had pneumonia. So I said those sorts of things probably all contributed to her death.

So I got the death certificate and it said “Fragility of old age, fractured hip, pneumonia, Covid”. So I thought, well, that’s what I told the doctor, but I don’t think fragility of old age is a cause of death, but I just took – and then I thought, you know, the reason why you have the certification of death is a safeguard for people, you know, and I just felt if we’re in a situation where – and I would have liked the doctor to have seen my aunt, because my aunt was emaciated, it wasn’t just in the care home that she had lost all that weight, she lost weight in hospitals too.

Lead 2C: Yes.

Ms Marion Reynolds: I would have liked a medical practitioner to have seen just how much she had really withered away.

Lead 2C: Just in terms of certification, then, I think it’s right he went by your word effectively, to –

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yes, I’m not casting any negative views on the GP, he’s an excellent GP, I have confidence in him, he would know I wouldn’t mislead him, but I don’t know that every family would have had that sort of relationship with the GP or would have been in a trust relationship with the GP.

Lead 2C: I think if I can just come back to this, then, Ms Reynolds, I know that obviously you’re speaking on behalf of bereaved families as well.

Ms Marion Reynolds: Yes.

Lead 2C: To what extent does your experience also reflect some of the broader experiences of the people within the bereaved families group?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Well, I think the sort of issues, I mean, really were quite systemic in that, I mean, the difficulties that people had in seeing their relatives, the difficulties they had in being confident that the care the relatives were receiving was of a standard that was appropriate, the fact that there was no – there were no safeguards in place in terms of other agencies going into the homes, RQIA inspectors, podiatrists were stopped, OTs, all of these people in a way, although they’re providing a service, they’re also a safeguard. Those services once they’re withdrawn meant that the homes really were acting as little fiefdoms of their own. And the difficulty, I mean, I wasn’t told of Care Partners, but neither were other people, and other people also had difficulty, even with that guidance, getting into homes. So those were issues that were common through all of us.

Lead 2C: I think –

Ms Marion Reynolds: Some of our members also were very concerned that their relatives were given sedative type medication, which probably hastened their demise, and I was asked by the home after I got in to sign a non-resuscitation, and I wouldn’t – I would have signed that, because the idea – I have done CPR and I would not have put my aunt through CPR because it would have been a total unkindness, but I know from our group that other people’s relatives had those in place without them knowing about it or having had it discussed with them, and that’s obviously a concern.

Lead 2C: Just in terms of you’ve also set out in your witness statement just some of the broader concerns as well, so not the concerns about how people were cared for, but the broader concerns as well about the way that the response to the pandemic was managed by government in Northern Ireland; is that right?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Well, yes. I think some of our members were very concerned that the Executive had been down for three years, was re-established in January of 2020, and they were concerned – a lot of our members were concerned that we had a new minister who hadn’t experience and came straight into a worldwide pandemic.

Now, I probably wouldn’t share that concern to the same degree, because having worked in a department, government ministers change, they all get their first day briefings, they all rely on their advisers, and, you know, they very quickly read into the situation. So I probably don’t share the same anxiety that a lot of our group do. But those people who had that anxiety, it caused them anxiety because they then didn’t have reliance on the system, and that’s an issue, you know, if you can’t rely on the system you’re concerned about how the science is being used, how we’re learning, how we’re making changes over time.

I think at the very beginning one could see the need for what I would say was quite draconian measures, but as time went on, we learnt more about the pandemic and we learnt who were vulnerable and we learnt more about how it was spread.

There wasn’t really the approach to moving forward based on acquired knowledge. It seemed, especially for people in care homes, and this is one reason why I stayed involved with the group after my aunt died, care homes still weren’t opening up, people were still being deprived of their family, their friends, their clergy, and I just thought this was wrong.

Lead 2C: Thank you, and I think one of the other concerns that you’ve pointed out in your statement is just the effect that having an absence of ministers had in the three years running up to the pandemic as well; is that right?

Ms Marion Reynolds: Well, I think one of the things that that would have impacted would have been legislative change, there was a huge amount(?) of legislation, if the pandemic required legislative change there really wouldn’t have been a time in the legislative timetable to do that, so that would have been a concern and I would share that concern.

Ms Dobbin: Ms Reynolds, those are all my questions.

Let me see just see if the Chair has any.

Lady Hallett: I don’t have any questions. I don’t think anybody has asked to ask any questions.

Thank you very much, Ms Reynolds. I can see why you were so fond of your aunt, she sounds quite a character.

The Witness: Oh, she was.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much for your help.

The Witness: Thank you.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: I think I have to leave because of managing the next witness’s entrance. Okay, two minutes.

(3.38 pm)

(A short break)

(3.43 pm)

Lady Hallett: Mr Scott.

Mr Scott: Good afternoon, my Lady. Please may the Inquiry call Nuala Toman.