LONDON, Dec 11 — The family of a nine-year-old London girl who died after a spate of severe asthma attacks will find out next week if poor air quality caused her death, a coroner’s inquest was told today.
Assistant coroner for Inner South London Philip Barlow said he would give his ruling on how Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died at 1100 GMT on Wednesday.
Barlow has heard 10 days of evidence about the young girl’s 2013 death, and whether air pollution was a factor. A ruling that it was would be a legal first in Britain.
Speaking after the hearing, Ella’s mother Rosamund told AFP: “I would like justice for my daughter. And really, that’s why I am here first and foremost.
“If we get the judgment that I think we need, it will impact a lot of children’s lives for the better,” she added.
“I think people probably don’t realise just how quickly and how dangerous air pollution is. We sort of act as if we’ve got lots and lots of time, which we don’t have... it is a public health emergency.”
Ella died on February 15, 2013 following a severe asthma attack. She had previously been taken to hospital with breathing difficulties some 30 times.
She lived near the busy and regularly congested South Circular road in Lewisham, south-east London.
Her mother told the hearing that medics had never raised the possibility that pollution exacerbated her condition, and said if they had, she would have moved.
A first inquest held in 2014 ruled that Ella died of acute respiratory failure caused by severe asthma. But the findings were overturned and a second inquest ordered.
That followed a review by an air pollution specialist who linked high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and harmful particulate matter near her home to the time of her hospital admissions.
The hearing was told that air pollution just one mile (1.6 kilometre) from the family home consistently broke European norms in the three years leading up to Ella’s death.
The coroner was also told that between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths in Britain each year are thought to be linked to air pollution.
The World Health Organisation says air pollution kills some seven million people across the globe every year and nine out of 10 people breathe air that exceeds guideline limits on pollutants.
Low- and middle-income countries are worst affected and the problem contributes to premature deaths. — AFP
