Tough Love—Fighting for Truth in a Polluted World
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah lost her daughter to acute asthma, exacerbated by air pollution, a decade ago. She has been fighting for clean air ever since. This is her extraordinary story.
Blog by KATY GLASSBOROW
Proximity to death, when guarding a loved one, is an extraordinary thing. Your sense of smell becomes hightened, your hearing sharp. You prowl around the person you love—the ill one—like a guard dog. You fight when they can’t, talk for them when they’re struggling, thump their chest and rub their back and grip them in your arms to run for help—you do everything in your almighty power to keep them alive.
This searing, desperate love continues even after the worst happens. The one you’d die to protect dies. The one for whom you’ve been fighting, advocating, punching the air and screaming into the night has gone. Your fierce love hangs there, limp and exhausted, but still burning hot, flailing around.
Its residual heat can cause explosions, can eat you alive. It can also prompt you to do extraordinary things.
This is the story of Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, a mum from Lewisham, and her love for her daughter Ella, who died of acute respiratory failure on 15 February 2013, three weeks after turning nine.
It’s the story of Rosamund working hard to uncover the truth about Ella’s death. And in the years since, devoting herself to getting the truth told, shouted from the rooftops of London and any major city besides: air pollution kills.
Rosamund won’t stop until everyone knows, and this is the story of why.
Ella was a fit, happy-go-lucky little girl when she started to develop breathing difficulties in October 2010. She was seven years old. By December of that year she was in intensive care with a hypoxic seizure due to lack to oxygen to her brain. She was diagnosed with asthma in 2011 and was admitted to hospital, as an emergency, over 30 times. Rosamund lost count of the number of times she resuscitated her daughter—too many times. More times than a parent should ever resuscitate their child. Her main job as Ella’s parent became fighting to keep her alive.
During the battle, Rosamund knew there was something indefinable making her daughter ill. All the tests in the world but no answers. There was something pulling the trigger, something detonating the asthma that she couldn’t put her finger on. A missing piece of the jigsaw that the doctors couldn’t hunt down, couldn’t tame. An unidentified threat that could not be nullified. A dreadful thing, so persistent, so illusive. It wasn’t the pollen, no. Nor was it the weather. There was, there must be, something else. If only it could be found.
In the years that followed Ella’s death, Rosamund could not be satisfied. It took two and a half years of searching, pushing, questioning until she found it. The ultimate reason her daughter died—the trigger for her asthma—was the air pollution from the South Circular. The 25 mile-long road that snakes itself around greater London, north to south and back round again, in a thick loop of endless traffic.
No-one seemed to know, seemed concerned, seemed to want to admit to this invisible killer lurking in our streets. Rosamund sought legal advice, and applied to the High Court in 2019 to grant a second inquest into Ella’s death.
In 2020, the Coroner concluded that excessive air pollution contributed to the asthma Ella died of. The case made history. It was the first time air pollution was named as a contributory cause of death.
A victory, of sorts. A legal battle won. Air pollution, it was air pollution. The trigger had been found. Truth uncovered, documented, enshrined in legal documents. But the fight nearly broke Rosamund.
Christmas 2020 came around and Rosamund had to make a decision. Does the fight end here? She was emotionally wrung out, but looked at her two other children. Her twins. Ella’s younger siblings. They were at risk too. The air pollution wasn’t abating. The road hadn’t disappeared. The traffic kept flowing, and those in charge, leaders and governments, business people and decision makers, seemed to still have their eyes closed to the consequences.
She had searched and found a smoking gun, but it was buried in a coroners document. Would the government listen to what the coroner had said in this one case? In the case of her little girl? Would the seismic occurrence of Ella’s death, the absence of her in her home in Lewisham, be felt by those in power?
Rosamund’s insistence had set something in motion. Sometimes evidence from an inquest shows there is a risk that future deaths could occur, and Coroners publish a Prevention of Future Deaths report, so the risks can be assessed by all considered responsible. This happened in Ella’s case and in April 2021, the Coroner reported a slew concerns. That national air pollution regularly breached World Health Organisation guidelines, that there is low public awareness about the consequences of air pollution, and that patients aren’t being told about the impact of air pollution on their health.
Okay, so that was it. Rosamund couldn’t stop there. Her search for the truth, her grit and perseverance, has made her a campaigner against air pollution. Actually, she describes herself as an advocate for clean air. A mum who was fighting to get justice for her daughter, and is still fighting, for everyone’s sons and daughters.
She didn’t set out to be an activist but what else could she do with all the knowledge she accrued.
A few minutes into Rosamund’s company and you know more about air pollution that you ever had before. You know that last year there were 23,000 excess deaths due to air pollution. One of the main reason children miss school is because of asthma. They are spending time in hospitals rather than playing and being with their friends. So here is Rosamund, formidable and brave, to put a stop to it.
She won’t tolerate flakiness, can’t abide squabbles and time wasting. She’s in this to save children’s lives. She has a seat at the table, and thank god she does. There is nobody better. Rosamund is an ambassador for the World Health Organisation, an honorary fellow of the British Science Association and has politicians on speed-dial. She attends briefings with climate scientists. She fights against corporate greed – fossil fuel companies making money from petrol and diesel sales fuelling this pollution problem. Fuelling the air pollution, accelerating the climate crisis, making this cycle ever worse for kids here, for kids everywhere.
Rosamund is prowling still. Around your kids, and mine. She’s here to bear witness. She doesn’t care who she needs to talk to, who’s feathers she must gently ruffle. She’ll square up to anyone, calmly stand there, holding the truth in her hands, disrupting the same old toxic narrative. Air pollution kills.
But she draws a line at alarming kids. No. This is our fight. Our responsibility. Us adults. Our job as parents is to protect our children, and to get the job at hand done now, ourselves, without unduly alarming them along the way.
Rosamund—the indefatigable mum of three from Lewisham—is now working to get the Clean Air (Human Right) Bill—named ‘Ella’s Law’—up for debate in the House of Commons. It’s hoped the law would enforce the right to clean air, and prevent the deaths of children, help to mitigate climate change by curbing air pollution and greenhouse gases.
Sounds incredible? Yes, it is. And so is Rosamund. Her message to you? You’re incredible too. Feel your power—step into your agency. Don’t be a bystander. Rise up! When the politicians come knocking at your door, let them know what you care about. Don’t let them just talk to you about money, the economy—you won’t be able to hold down a job if you’re ill, or dead. Instead of listening to their economic promises, ask them about your health instead. The power to demand clean air is in your hands.
Links
- For updates on the Bill, please see https://ellaslaw.uk/updates.
- To listen to Rosamund on the podcast Mum, Will the Planet Die Before I Do?, please see our podcast page.
