Boris Johnson left older people like my dad to die – he should be prosecuted

I was a doctor in Covid ITU when the government played Russian roulette with the lives of 3 million people, writes Saleyha Ahsan. They knew their plans might kill the elderly and vulnerable – but they went ahead with it anyway. Now they need to be held to account

Lee Cain stated that Johnson had the ‘wrong skill set’ to lead during Covid (Getty)

Another Covid inquiry day, another set of triggering revelations that give me haunting flashbacks. This time, it is the WhatsApp messages between Boris Johnson and his former communications director Lee Cain.

Johnson states being rocked by Covid fatality data, writing “the median age is 82… that is above life expectancy. So, get Covid and live longer.” In the exchange, Johnson even identifies the number of people over 80 (my father Ahsan-ul-Haq Chaudry being one of them) as 3 million.

The government’s former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance’s notes revealed the sentiments of the chief whip, Mark Spencer, on the matter at the time: “I think we should let the old people get it and protect others.” The PM and his backbenchers were documented to be in agreement ( “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them”).

With the knowledge that the elderly were the ones to suffer the most, Johnson in the same exchange with Cain, declared “it shows we don’t go for nationwide lockdown.”

Essentially, the lives of 3 million people – equivalent to the population of Wales – were worth risking.

Surely, a line has been crossed here. When will the revelations that deaths of the elderly and vulnerable (which includes young transplant patients with a precious second lease of life) were so readily anticipated and efforts to protect them balanced against the impact of the economy, become a step towards definitive accountability?

It is good seeing those responsible face an inquiry judge, but for me and many others who lost loved ones, more is needed.

I am curious as to what the leader of the House of Lords, Lord Nicholas True (72) and other members have to say about the fact that pensioners and the vulnerable do not deserve societal adjustments to protect them at times of crisis, such as Covid. The oldest current member is 98, with an average age of 71 – the age the Covid-19 Inquiry judge, Lady Heather Hallett (73), would have been during the pandemic. All of them – according to Johnson – were dispensable (Why destroy the economy “for people who’ll die anyway soon?”)

The irony is that the beating heart of the Conservative Party voter demographic sits in the pensioner age bracket too. Many of whom inflicted Johnson on the country as PM, through their vote. Their yearning for Brexit resulted in stripping the NHS of EU healthcare workers just in time for Covid.

With Johnson’s logic, why provide medical care, social care, or indeed any care for anyone over the age of 80?

This was, like it or not, a form of eugenics rhetoric. Jeremy Hunt admitted on BBC Newsnight on 3 March 2020, that the Conservative government had changed its plan “from herd immunity strategy to the suppression strategy” after the virus had spread throughout the UK and deaths were climbing at an alarming rate.

They opted for a game of Russian roulette with an airborne killer. Mass transmission was expected but with inevitable high elderly and vulnerable death rates being the compromise. When setting out the government’s strategy, it is claimed Dominic Cummings said the plan was to “protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad.”

People are saying they find it hard to remember what that time was like. Healthcare workers remember it clearly. Memories made from indelible experiences. For my Channel 4 Dispatches, Covid Critical: A Doctor’s Story, I filmed (with their consent) patients and healthcare staff to show the world what was going on behind hospital walls and what those with Covid were enduring.

I hoped it would cut through the confusion created by Johnson and others, so the public could see the reality of catching the virus. Patients died desperate for breath. Seeing frightened elderly patients fighting with their arms and legs flailing, trying to breathe, is something I will never forget.

I can still remember my father crying out in anguished fear when breathing became nearly impossible for him. Sounds I’d never heard from him before. It happened every time he slipped a little down the bed and out of the optimum position for his breathing.

Despite working in intensive care at the time, I felt weak, helpless and scared, running to get nurses to help me move him back up the bed. When he spoke through his CPAP mask, filled with blood from his mouth, saying “I want to die,” we moved to end-of-life care and his last words were “I have six children.” No, I have not forgotten what it was like.

Those who caught Covid died difficult deaths, many of them alone, away from loved ones. In some cases, a nurse sat by them when the end-of-life drugs started to work and some semblance of peace arrived. But before that, their last conscious moments were at times horrendous. Those were the fortunate ones who made it to hospital. There were so many more who died those breathless difficult deaths with no end-of-life care or medication to ease the fear. For them, non-medically trained carers ran from room to room as their residents fought hard for their last breaths and lost.

Cain stated that Johnson had the “wrong skill set” to lead during Covid. It is the job of the prime minister to lead at times of crisis. You can’t pick and choose which one. They are all responsible. They were there. Why did no one speak? Why has it taken until now? Does their conscience prick them when they see the Covid mortality statistics, last count over 230,000? Do they say to themselves, I was part of the actions that made that number what it is? This is their legacy, and it will be remembered.

I hope that the next step in the inquiry will be prosecutions. It might not be realised, but it’s my hope. They knew their plans might kill a proportion of society – the elderly and vulnerable – and they went ahead with it anyway.

Covid did not happen to us alone. It hit other countries first. We had time on our side that many other countries didn’t. Yet despite this, the approach was fatalistic, going for herd immunity, that few politicians fully understood.

Cummings argues that Sage didn’t make it clear enough. If members of Sage were warning against herd immunity, or any other aspects of the Covid response, then they were not doing it hard or vocally enough. It was their job to make the government understand. They had the direct line. We, as healthcare workers in hospitals, rely on bodies like Sage to make the non-scientist politicians – with our and our patients’ lives in their hands – understand.

Why didn’t they speak out? If people will die, you break ranks and speak. Staying silent in the hope of a peerage or honour is not how it should work.

Johnson did not save the economy and I did not save my father. He suffered horrendously during his last few days. A wonderful father who spent the week before cooking a family meal for his children and then watching his favourite film, The Godfather, with them. At least we got that. Many others didn’t. A dedicated teacher with an incredible legacy. All his six children work in healthcare: five doctors and one pharmacist and all were on the Covid front line.

The legacy of Johnson and those who worked with him during that time is the polar opposite. They will be forever known as the government that planned for the elderly and the most vulnerable in our society to die.

Dr Saleyha Ahsan works in emergency medicine