The mum of a girl rushed to hospital 15 times with asthma attacks is demanding ministers tackle the “invisible threat” of air pollution.
Leah Ward fears Lucy, seven, is at risk of being killed by the air she breathes, like tragic nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah.
Londoner Ella went to hospital 27 times before a fatal asthma attack, with an inquest calling dirty air a “material” factor.
Now Leah is backing the coroner’s call for tight emission caps and a clean air campaign by the British Lung Foundation and Asthma UK so “all children can breathe easier”.
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Recalling numerous hospital visits since Lucy was two, Leah, 45, said: “It is a horrible thing to hold an oxygen mask over your three-year-old’s face to make sure they are getting oxygen.
"I’m sure it is something poor Ella’s mum experienced.
“Sometimes she has needed to have IV drugs because she was not responding to the nebuliser treatment.
“It is heartbreaking to see your child gasping for air as doctors fight against time to find a tiny vein.”
Medics can’t say what aggravates Lucy’s flare-ups but Leah said they are “no longer virally induced”.
She and husband Martin, of Selly Oak, Birmingham, are convinced air pollution is to blame as her health improved after lockdown caused traffic to plunge.
Leah said: “The last time she was hospitalised was in March last year.
"This is the first winter we’ve avoided A&E.”
Public Health England says emergency asthma hospital admissions had halved since the start of the pandemic.
- Sign the petition for cleaner air at blf.org.uk/take-action/clean-air
