I lost my son to an NHS protocol

Mother hits out after son given midazolam and dies

- JACQUI DEEVOY

ROSALIND Forshaw's son James died unexpectedly in hospital in 2021 after being admitted with a cough. He was 48.

Now she is telling her heartbreaking story for The Light:

In 2019, my son James, at the age of 48, was admitted to a mental hospital in Essex by the NHS. He was very popular with other young patients and would frequently advocate for them, always the caring soul.

Two years later, James refused the covid jab, which went down like a lead balloon in that institution.

In mid-October 2021, he phoned me to ask for his father's phone number. He seemed very subdued and thoughtful, not his usual self at all. He said to me: "Mum, I've had a terrible life, haven't I?"

I knew what he was referring to. At the age of 20, his two children were taken into care and adopted through no fault of his own. Those children were his life and it broke him. He fell into a spiral of depression, pills, drugs and alcohol. There was nothing his father and I could do.

The 16th of November 2021 was his 48th birthday. Before I had the chance to call him, the social worker at the mental hospital rang. She told me flatly that James had died in Basildon hospital on the 11th of November after being admitted on the 29th of October.

Died? James had DIED? How could that be? And why didn't anyone tell us at the time? I felt sick, confused and so shocked, as if I'd been kicked in the stomach. My beautiful son had gone through all that without me or anyone he loved knowing, and with no family at his side.