It is hard to believe that it has been five years since the first Covid-19 national lockdown. Events were held throughout the UK to mark the occasion and remember the many thousands of people that died during the pandemic. This pandemic was a heartbreaking time for so many people because not only were loved ones lost but the opportunity to comfort them in their last moments were denied, as was the opportunity to properly grieve due to the lockdown restrictions on funeral gatherings.
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This has made memorial gardens, forests and events all the more important to grieving relatives. It was therefore bewildering that no large event was planned to take place in Wales by the Labour Government on this anniversary. I know this caused deep upset among the members of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group that I met up with on Sunday March 9 on the anniversary of the first lockdown. They had asked to join them for a private gathering at the Ynys Hywel Covid Memorial Woodland in Caerffili County Borough in the absence of a formal, arranged event by the Labour Government in Wales.
This is a group that I and other members of Plaid Cymru are familiar with since we backed to the hilt their campaign for a full, independent public inquiry into the way in which the pandemic was handled in Wales. We all agreed that tagging a module onto the UK public inquiry was insufficient to cover the differences in policy and the complexities of how things were run differently – for better or for worse – here in Wales.
The lack of an inquiry also significantly reduces the prospects of learning from previous mistakes. With the Labour Government stonewalling the public inquiry for Wales and now failing to organise a dedicated memorial event on the fifth anniversary of the pandemic, it is fair to say that the members of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru have been left feeling ignored and mistreated.
Finally, I want to mention the brave women I met at a Senedd event who spoke about how endometriosis has blighted their lives. It is scandalous that for a condition that affects 1 in 10 women, the average diagnosis time in Wales is 9 years and 11 months – the longest in the UK. In Aneurin Bevan University Health Board there are more than 8,500 on the waiting list for gynaecology appointments with 40% waiting more than 26 weeks to be seen.
This is not good enough and the Labour Health Minister must get a grip on such a debilitating issue for so many women across Wales.