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VIEW, Issue 60, 2021 www.viewdigital.org

Page 15 ‘My WAVE work goes on’

Campaigner Alan McBride pays tribute to ‘tenacity, courage and the bravery’ of the victims who would not give up fight for compensation

Imet with WAVE Trauma Centre campaigner Alan McBride in a room in Belfast city centre. It was a couple of weeks after innocent victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland had been awarded compensation following a long battle over many years.

I asked Alan what were his feelings on the day it was finally announced that a compensation fund would be set up.

“There were times when we thought we’d never see it. I’m proud of the role I played, but I was even more proud of all those injured. Because without their tenacity, their courage, and their bravery, it wouldn’t have happened. And whilst I think of the people who died in our group and who never witnessed the compensation package, it was still a day of great rejoicing and the end of a 13-year journey.”

I asked Alan did he intend to keep working with WAVE or was he looking to go in another direction?

“No, my work with WAVE goes on,” replied Alan. “One of my biggest regrets in terms of the pension is that we were not able to anything for the bereaved. You’re only really legally eligible if you were injured, be it psychologically or physically. And, of course, that will include some bereaved people but it doesn't include them all. I’m now campaigning in regard to getting some acknowledgement and financial redress for bereaved people.

“I’m also involved in a project where we are looking for 100 stories of kindness being shown to people, Catholic or Protestant, in the midst of the Troubles.”

Alan went on to talk about how 2021 had been a particularly difficult year for him personally. “My daughter Zoe turned 30 this year. That means she is older now than her mother, Sharon, who was killed in the Shankill Road bombing in 1993. That kind of brought it home to me in terms of how long Sharon has been dead, and the fact that she was a young person with her life in front of her, and how it was taken from her.”

At this point in the interview, Alan smiled as he recollected what Sharon had been like as a young woman (she was 29 years of age when she died).

“She was gorgeous,” he said. “She was a really beautiful woman, kind and considerate. She was the kind of woman that would have done anything for anybody. And whilst that’s might be a bit of an old cliché, it’s still very true. Her relationship with her daughter was beautiful to watch.”

I asked Alan about his views on Northern Ireland and what the future might be like, especially with growing commentary about a possible border poll.

“I’ve always tried to be optimistic when I’ve thought about Northern Ireland, although there has been times when they’ve been, you know, very sad,” replied Alan. “But my optimism looks as though it has been misplaced. I don’t think that we have made the kind of strides that I would have hoped that we would have made following the Good Friday Agreement. But at the end of the day, we have to learn to share this piece of the Earth.

“I’m not overly concerned which flag flies over Belfast City Hall – whether it’s a Union Jack or a Tricolour, or even both of them. For me it’s all about the quality of your life.

“I was a very firm Remainer. I believe that Brexit will be bad for Northern Ireland. I hope that I’m wrong about that.

“I also have a strong British identity. I would want it respected and recognised in terms of there ever being a United Ireland.”

Alan McBride: ‘At the end of the day people in Northern Ireland have to share this little piece of the Earth’

There is no greater travesty, there is no greater pain, than losing a child. The death of a child changes everything

Alan and Jennifer Roberts talk to Brian Pelan about the battle for truth about their nine-year-old daughter’s death in 1996

Claire Roberts died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children on October 23, 1996. She was just nine years of age. This year was the 25th anniversary of her death. Her parents, Alan and Jennifer, and brothers Gareth and Stuart, have had to endure years of struggle for the truth to be established about Claire’s death.

An inquest in 2019 found that her death was caused by the treatment she received in the hospital.

Claire’s death was also examined by the Hyponatraemia Inquiry, led by Mr Justice John O’Hara.

The 14-year inquiry into the deaths of five children in Northern Ireland’s hospitals found that four of them were avoidable.

Mr Justice O’Hara was critical of how the families were treated in the aftermath of the deaths and also of the evidence given to the inquiry by medical professionals.

He said that “doctors and managers cannot be relied on to do the right thing at the right time” and that they had to put the public interest before their own reputation.

He also said that some witnesses to the inquiry “had to have the truth dragged out of them”.

The Hyponatraemia Inquiry was first announced in 2004, following a TV documentary about the deaths of three children in Northern Ireland hospitals.

They died in separate incidents, but the programme alleged all three deaths –those of Lucy Crawford, Raychel Ferguson and Adam Strain – were a result of mistakes by staff as they administered intravenous fluids.

By 2008, the inquiry was extended to examine the cases of two more children –

Claire Roberts

Claire Roberts and Conor Mitchell – who died while receiving hospital care.

All five children died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (RBHSC) between 1995 and 2003.

I recently visited the home of Alan and Jennifer Roberts in east Belfast. We sat at a table in the living room. A framed picture of a smiling nine-year-old Claire sat nearby on a mantlepiece.

As a journalist, I have spoken to many families about loss and pain over the last 30-odd years. I have rarely encountered a couple as dedicated and eloquent as Alan and Jennifer.

I asked Alan how did the couple find the strength to keep going?

“We’re determined and we always have been determined to establish the truth,” replied Alan. “That has been our goal since day one.

“We as a family put our trust in the health service. We put our trust in doctors. And that trust has been denied. We have been misled as a family. When that happens to a family, parents will do all they can to establish the reasons and truth as to why their child has died. There is no greater travesty, there is no greater pain, than losing a child. The death of a child changes everything.

“And when you establish that there are errors and failures within the care management of that child, and when you find out that the death of that child was totally avoidable and wholly preventable, then you need to ask questions.

“We were told at the time that Claire had died a natural death and we had accepted that. Essentially for eight years Jennifer and I had lived as grieving parents and believing that everything possible had been done for our daughter.

“It wasn’t until 2004 when we watched the UTV Insight programme, When Hospitals Kill, to find that things, potentially, hadn’t been done right for Claire.”

When Mr Justice O’Hara published his report he said: “The unfortunate truth to be drawn from this inquiry is that there are too many people in the Health Service who place reputation before honesty and avoidance of blame before duty. All that is required is that people be told honestly what has happened and a legally enforceable duty of candour for individuals will not threaten those whose conduct is appropriate.”

He added: “I recommend that a duty of candour attach to individuals as well as organisations in the event of death or serious harm and that criminal

Jennifer and Alan Roberts at their home in east Belfast

sanctions should apply.”

I asked Alan why he thought implementing an individual duty of candour was so important?

“A duty of candour is a duty of honesty,” said Alan. “It’s a duty on doctors, and other health care professionals, to be open, honest and transparent with the patient and with the patient’s family. It’s very simple.

“In Northern Ireland, we currently do not have a legal requirement. There’s no legal requirement placed on an organisation, or on an individual working for that organisation, to ensure that openness and candour with the patient and family is provided.

“To put that bluntly, a doctor is under no legal duty to tell the truth about possible or known failures or shortcomings in a patient’s care management,” added Alan.

Northern Ireland’s current British Medical Association (BMA) chair, Dr Tom Black, said in a recent interview: “The reasons we have concerns about an individual duty of candour with sanctions is that when you look at every other country that has modern healthcare systems, they’ve all decided it’s a bad idea.

“It’s a bad idea because a blame and sanction culture creates more fear, more defensive practice and has the unintended consequence of making things worse.

“An organisational duty of candour is certainly something we think should be brought in as other countries have either brought it in or are about to bring it in.”

Alan Roberts voiced his objections to the concept of an individual duty of candour being described “as a bad idea”.

“We have a leading health organisation, the BMA, criticising the recommendations in a public inquiry report as a ‘bad idea’. What sort of message is that sending out?” asked Alan. “Not only to us as parents who have been through this travesty and who have been asking for honesty and truth.”

The Roberts family have had three death certificates. Only the final one was correct. Surely they and other families deserve an individual duty of candour? It is not about punishing health professionals. It is about making sure that the public has confidence about what happens to their loved ones when they are ill.

• A public consultation on establishing an organisational/individual duty of candour has concluded and a decision on whether a new law should be introduced now rests with Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann.