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Half of deaths among people with learning disabilities in England in 2020 were ‘avoidable’

Father tells of son being denied ventilator as report reveals many of those with learning disabilities who died of COVID did not receive good enough care

By Victoria Noble
Half of deaths among people with learning disabilities in England in 2020 were ‘avoidable’
Last year, England’s avoidable death rate across all illnesses was three times higher for those with learning disabilities | Nick Moore / Alamy
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In March last year, John Baskin received a phone call telling him that doctors were not planning on providing a ventilator for his son, Steven. Steven, who is 43 years old and has Down’s Syndrome, had been hospitalised with COVID-19.

“She [the doctor] was telling me that, ‘If your son needs a ventilator, I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to give him one.’ I just gasped.”

“I felt sick, absolutely sick. I don’t mean that as an expression, I really did.”

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0