UK fights pollution at glacial pace says tragic Ella’s family
THE family of a girl who died after an asthma attack has accused council chiefs of tackling illegal air pollution at a “glacial pace”.
Ella Kissi- Debrah, nine, died in February 2013 after enduring numerous seizures and 30 visits to hospital over the previous three years.
Her first inquest in 2014 ruled that she died of acute respiratory failure caused by severe asthma.
But last year that ruling was quashed and another inquest ordered after new evidence into the risks of air pollution was revealed in a 2018 report by expert Professor Sir Stephen Holgate.
Ella lived close to two very busy roads – London’s South Circular and the A21 which runs into the capital.
Sir Stephen found a “striking association” between Ella’s emergency hospital admissions and spikes in the most noxious pollutants, nitrogen dioxide and microscopic particulates.
He argued there was a “real prospect that without unlawful levels of air pollution, Ella would not have died”.
The new inquest could make her the first person in the world whose cause of death is ruled to be air pollution.
Her mother, Rosamund, a former teacher, has for years fought for an inquiry into the role of air pollution from traffic in Ella’s death.
As the two- week inquest opened, the family’s barrister Richard Hermer QC told Southwark Coroner’s Court that after studies indicated soaring pollution levels the council took seven years to produce the first strategic needs assessment.
Addressing David Edwards, Lewisham Council’s head of environmental health, Mr Hermer said: “That’s a glacial pace in the context of a public health emergency, isn’t it?” Mr Edwards admitted it was. The council, he said, had little control over emissions.
The inquest heard that despite Ella’s severe asthma, her mother was not informed of the risks from air pollution.
The inquest continues.