Air pollution and leaving London

I’m following with huge sadness the case of Ella Kissi-Debrah, where the coroner has today finally ruled that air pollution played a role in her death. I'm particularly sad that her mother was not told by any medical staff that her child's asthma could have been related to /worsened by the air in London. If she knew, she would have moved heaven and earth to get her child away. I know because we did just that.

My son had his first hospital admission before his first birthday (2013) and his latest just before his fifth (2017). Just before we moved out of London, from our flat, near the A3.

Our experience is nothing compared to that of Ella’s family. My son’s asthma is generally mild. We only had one ICU admission. The many others involved a few days on the ward on oxygen with a course of high strength steroids. Still, it was traumatic and depressingly regular, three days or so after he caught a cold or cough we’d be back in A&E pumping him full of inhaler.

And you would often notice that the A&E was full of children like him, children who couldn’t breathe. The doctors and nurses would say it was ‘one of those nights’.

Then after two admissions in as many months, I started asking questions. “Great you are discharging us, but he will be here again as soon as he catches another cold. What can we do?”

So they referred us to a consultant. Then I ask the consultant, “What can we do?” And we were given more steroids.  

Then you start to hear about air pollution in the city. The impact it might be having. Our flat and his school were firmly in the ‘exceeds limits’ zone.

So the next time we see the consultant I ask “Would it help if we didn’t live in London, next to the A3” he pauses then says, “it might” but qualified it, “not everyone is able to move”.

I’m sad that I had to ask and we weren’t told. The link may not be 100% proven (yet) but parents of children with multiple admissions should be routinely advised and make that choice themselves.

It was not a difficult choice for us. We were gone as soon as we could arrange it.

The million dollar question is has it made a difference? There is no control group so I have no proof, but I believe it has. Three years’ later and there have been no further hospital admissions. The mild asthma is still there, controlled by steroids, but it is not triggered by viruses as it used to be.

I no longer live in fear of him catching a cold.

The final time we were in the hospital it was a month before we left. We were in a ward of two, sharing with a boy with a terrible cough in the same reception class as mine. His mother, also living next to the A3, had two very asthmatic children and a damp flat in a high rise. She said that the council would not move her because she smoked (only outside).

I’m grateful every day that we were able to leave London for cleaner air, to give his lungs a chance. But I also know that not everyone is so lucky. 

Hopefully this ruling will make a difference to them.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/16/girls-death-contributed-to-by-air-pollution-coroner-rules-in-landmark-case