'Don't let my wife's death be in vain': Husband of nurse and new mother who died battling Covid urges ministers to shield pregnant healthcare workers

She became the face of the NHS heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in the battle against Covid-19.

Nurse Mary Boateng was just 28 when she died of the virus – days after giving birth to a baby girl she never got to hold.

Now her grieving husband Ernest, 30, is spearheading a campaign to ensure his wife’s death was not in vain.

 

Ernest Boateng, pictured with his children, AJ, 3, and baby Mary, wants to make sure that his wife's death from Covid-19 was not in vain

He said his wife Mary, pictured right, was in charge of Christmas in their household and he was not able to prepare this year as the 'pain was too raw'

‘I couldn’t put up a tree or even buy presents this year because the pain is still so raw,’ Ernest said.

‘Mary was always the one in charge of Christmas – she did the decorations and bought the presents. Last year, we were both so excited that she was expecting our little girl. Now I’m a single father of two children and Mary has gone.’

Mary died at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital in Bedfordshire on April 12, just five days after doctors delivered her baby daughter, named Mary in honour of her mother.

Ernest, who is training to be a human rights lawyer, wants the Government to introduce regulations to shield pregnant healthcare workers.

‘Mary was so young, just 28. She never expected to die. She had a bright future ahead of her,’ he told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Her death didn’t just rob me of my wife, it took away a mother from her two children.

‘I want the Government to bring in rules shielding pregnant women after 20 weeks of pregnancy. I don’t want any family to go through the pain we have.’ Mary, a deputy sister who worked on a diabetes ward, fell ill with Covid-19 in mid-March. She was admitted to hospital on April 5 but discharged, only to be readmitted two days later struggling to breathe.

Doctors delivered her baby by C-section on April 7.

‘I couldn’t be at the birth in case I was Covid-positive and infected the baby, so I sat outside the hospital in my car and prayed,’ Ernest said.

‘They told me Mary would be fine. I spoke to her after the birth and she said she was safe and the baby was safe. Days later she was dead.’ Tragically Mary’s father Stephen died from the virus five days before his daughter.

Ernest said: ‘When I look at our baby girl I know how blessed I am that she is here in the world and healthy, but I feel pain that her mother never got to hold her.’ An inquest into Mary’s death is expected to resume in the New Year.