Apologise to my kids, says mum of tragic toxic air girl
THE mother of a schoolgirl who died after breathing in illegal levels of polluted air says the Government should apologise to her surviving children.
Tragic Ella Adoo Kissi-Debrah lived near a busy main road before she died aged nine after suffering a severe asthma attack caused by toxic air.
Her twin siblings Robert and Sophia were at a candlelit vigil earlier this year on what would have been their sister’s 18th birthday.
Justice
Their mum Rosamund said: “I think her siblings deserve a full apology from the Government because the coroner was clear that without illegal levels of air pollution, she wouldn’t even have got asthma.
“This year, she would have been going to university. So in her memory, I think they should do it justice. The Government still needs to acknowledge that without illegal levels of air pollution, Ella would still be here.”
The family home was near the busy South Circular Road in Catford, south-east London, when Ella died in 2013. Today marks one year since Coroner Philip Barlow published his Prevention of Future Deaths Report – based on Ella’s case – which spells out how to save lives.
He suggested implementing legal air pollution limits based on World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. He also called for a public awareness campaign and education for the medical community about the dangers of air pollution to health.
The Department for Environment is carrying out a public consultation on UK air quality targets. But it proposes to meet WHO guidelines set in 2005, rather than its 2021 guidelines, which are based on the latest science.
Rosamund said: “The public consultation is incredibly weak. What the coroner recommended and what the Government is putting forward is not the same thing.
“We need a public health campaign to tell the British public about the detrimental impacts of air pollution.” ●●Exposure to traffic pollution may slightly raise the risk of catching Covid in the days after breathing it in, a study by Sweden’s Institute of Environmental Medicine suggests.