Going Viral - The Podcast

As the UK’s independent public inquiry into Covid-19 gets underway, members of the Covid bereaved complain that they are not being given an opportunity to testify. Today, Mark speaks to the parents of Susan Sullivan, a woman with Down's Syndrome who died of Covid-19 at Barnet General Hospital on March 28, 2020, after being deemed “not for resuscitation” and being denied access to intensive care. The Sullivans have long suspected that their daughter was the victim of medical bias and may have survived if the hospital had granted her statutory right to have a family member at her bedside. Determined to be Susan’s voice, John and Ida Sullivan launched their own investigation into Susan’s death and uncovered a catalogue of medical errors in the process. We also hear from Baroness Heather Hallet, the chair of the UK public inquiry, and from Fran Hall and other members of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK. Presented by Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum With: Fran Hall @FranFD1 John and Ida Sullivan  www.covidfamiliesforjustice.org / @CovidJusticeuk  Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald @Melissafitzg Cover art by Patrick Blower  www.blowercartoons.com Follow us on Twitter: @GoingViral_pod     Follow us on Instagram: goingviral_thepodcast  Blog: markhonigsbaum.substack.com  This episode of Going Viral has been produced with the support of a grant from the Higher Education Innovation Fund at City, University of London. It is part of the project, “Commemorating Covid, Remembering Pandemics”, www.rememberingpandemics.com If you enjoy our podcast - please leave us a rating or review.  Thank you!

As the UK’s independent public inquiry into Covid-19 gets underway, members of the Covid bereaved complain that they are not being given an opportunity to testify. In a new two part special, Mark speaks to the parents of Susan Sullivan, a Down’s Syndrome woman who died of Covid-19 at Barnet General Hospital on March 28, 2020, after being deemed “not for resuscitation” and being denied access to intensive care. The Sullivans have long suspected that their daughter was the victim of medical bias and may have survived if the hospital had granted her statutory right to have a family member at her bedside. Determined to be Susan’s voice, John and Ida Sullivan launched their own investigation into Susan’s death and uncovered a catalogue of medical errors in the process. Mark investigates.... ...'That's Dancing Queen' and 'Who Do We Not Save' coming to Going Viral on Thursday 13th July.

As sure as night follows day, we will face another pandemic, so how can we learn from the mistakes made during Covid-19, to ensure our response next time is not only more effective, but also more ethical? Today Mark and his guests Ilina Singh, James Wilson and John Prideaux dissect the British Government’s approach during the Covid-19 pandemic and explore the failure to engage seriously with the ethical challenges the pandemic raised, comparing the British approach with those in the USA and China. And they debate how ethicists and ethical thinking could play a more central role in deciding how to respond to the next pandemic. With Catherine Joynson of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Produced in collaboration with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Presented by Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum With: Catherine Joynson Associate Director, Nuffield Council on Bioethics www.nuffieldbioethics.org | @CathJoynson | @Nuffbioethics John Prideaux The political correspondent at the Economist. www.mediadirectory.economist.com/people/john-prideaux/  |   https://www.economist.com/  | @JohnPrideaux | @TheEconomist Ilina Singh Professor of Neuroscience & Society at the University of Oxford and co-director at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Ethics and the Humanities. Principal Investigator on The UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator, a collaborative project that brought UK ethics research expertise to bear on the multiple, ongoing ethical challenges present by Covid-19. https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/team/ilina-singh  | @OxPsychiatry James Wilson Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Health Humanities Centre at UCL and co-investigator on the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/people/permanent-academic-staff/james-wilson  |  @jamesgswilson | @ucl Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald @Melissafitzg Co-producer: Kate Jopling @katejopling Cover art by Patrick Blower  www.blowercartoons.com Follow us on Twitter: @GoingViral_pod     Follow us on Instagram: goingviral_thepodcast  Blog: markhonigsbaum.substack.com  This episode of Going Viral on trust in the pandemic, has been produced in collaboration with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. The Ethics Accelerator was funded by the UKRI Covid-19 research and innovation fund.  https://ukpandemicethics.org/   |   @PandemicEthics_ Transcript available here: Going-Viral-What-Would-an-Ethical-Pandemic-Look-Like-Transcript.pdf  If you enjoy our podcast - please leave us a rating or review.  Thank you!

From the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Government made it clear that a baseline level of mortality from Covid was being “priced in” to its decision making: on March 12th 2020, Boris Johnson stopped short of ordering the sort of lockdowns seen in other countries and warned that, “many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” This approach belied a series of value judgements and trade-offs where people’s lives were set against other values, such as personal liberty and the economy. Today Mark and his guests Anjana Ahuja, Martin McKee and Dominic Wilkinson, reappraise this approach. With Ceinwen Giles and Matt Fowler. Produced in collaboration with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Presented by Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum With: Anjana Ahuja  Contributing writer on science for the Financial Times and co-author of the bestselling ‘Spike: The Virus Vs The People’ - the inside story of the Covid-19 pandemic with Sir Jeremy Farrar. https://www.ft.com/anjana-ahuja  /  @anjahuja Ceinwen Giles Co-CEO of Shine Cancer Support, member of the General Advisory Council of The King's Fund and Chair of the Patient and Public Voices Forum for the NHS England Cancer Programme. www.shinecancersupport.org / @ceineken Professor Martin McKee Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Martin is Research Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and he’s published many scientific papers and books on health and health policy, with a particular focus on countries undergoing political and social transition. www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/mckee.martin / @martinmckee Matt Fowler Co-Founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. www.jrct.org.uk/covid-19-bereaved-families  / @CovidJusticeUK Professor Dominic Wilkinson Professor of Medical Ethics and Director of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. Dominic is also a Consultant Neonatologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College. He is one the editors of a forthcoming book with Oxford University Press on pandemic ethics. www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/about-jesus-college/our-community/people/professor-dominic-wilkinson/ / @NeonatalEthics Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald @Melissafitzg Co-producer: Kate Jopling  @katejopling Cover art by Patrick Blower. www.blowercartoons.com Follow us on Twitter: @GoingViral_pod     Follow us on Instagram: goingviral_thepodcast  Blog: markhonigsbaum.substack.com  This episode of Going Viral on trust in the pandemic, has been produced in collaboration with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. The Ethics Accelerator was funded by the UKRI Covid-19 research and innovation fund.  https://ukpandemicethics.org/   /  @PandemicEthics_ Transcript available here: Going-Viral-How-Many-Deaths-Are-Too-Many-Transcript.pdf