Woman whose husband died from AstraZeneca vaccine calls for overhaul of outdated compensation scheme

Experts believe Stephen Wright was the first man in the UK, possibly the world, to die from the jab. His wife Charlotte tells Samuel Lovett the government must do more to support heartbroken families like hers

Charlotte Wright, pictured with her husband Stephen, has been campaigning to reform the UK’s vaccine compensation scheme (Charlotte Wright)

It took months for Charlotte Wright to accept what killed her husband. His passing was sudden and unexpected, the causes desperately unclear at the time. After appearing to have suffered a stroke, Dr Stephen Wright was rushed to hospital in the early hours of 26 January. Later that day, at 6.33pm, time of death was called.

Only now, after medical confirmation, does Charlotte acknowledge that her 32-year-old husband, and father to two young boys, died as a result of vaccine-induced clotting in the brain. “Because we were both pro-vaccine,” Charlotte says, “I was in denial about everything and scared to suggest that had been the cause.”

A clinical psychologist who regularly worked in A&E, Stephen is just one of 66 people in the UK to die from the rare syndrome, having received a first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab on 16 January. With more than 40 million shots of the vaccine administered up to 2 June, the statistics speak loudly for themselves. Stephen’s death was heartbreakingly rare – a moment of cruel chance that carried catastrophic consequences for his loved ones.

His passing is made all the more unbearable by the civic duty he was performing. In any given week, many more will die from the lesser acts that define our everyday lives – crossing the road, driving to work, walking down the stairs. The exceptional circumstances surrounding Stephen’s death are far harder to comprehend. Sixty-five other families are in the same crushing bind.

The realisation of what had happened eventually sunk in for Charlotte during a call with a leading haematologist on 19 April. The expert said that “never before in natural history” had a case like Stephen’s been recorded, and speculated that he was the first person in the UK – “possibly the world” – to die from a Covid vaccine. “That was the moment I accepted it,” says Charlotte.

But it didn’t make it any easier to process. She is still haunted by that winter night back in January when her world collapsed in on itself: a nightmarish blur of flashing ambulance lights, her husband confused and struggling to walk in a straight line, and one final embrace. “We desperately said goodbye to each other twice, and told each other we loved one another,” Charlotte says. “I keep looking back now and thinking why didn’t I say more, but I didn’t want to worry him.”

By the time Charlotte was called in the next day at 2pm, Stephen had all but gone. He had suffered seizures and multiple bleeds on the brain throughout the night, while his platelet count was estimated to be at around 10,000. A normal count stands at 150,000, and anything under 100,000 is deemed dangerous to operate on. After Stephen failed two brain stem tests, the decision was made to switch off his life support.

“When I had the call from the hospital, he’d already passed really,” says Charlotte. “They were calling me in to tell me he’d died. It was ridiculously quick, which we didn’t get out of our minds.”

But it is the events that followed Stephen’s death which have driven the young mother to speak out publicly. She is not here to question the vaccines, which she continues to stand by. “I don’t disagree with the rollout,” she says. “I know why they had to do it and that they had to do it.”

A children’s psychologist, Stephen Wright was due to start a new role at Great Ormond Street Hospital just days before his death (Graham Baker Photography)

Instead, she is hoping to spark a proper conversation around the clinical, emotional and financial support that is needed for the small number of families and people affected by adverse reactions to the Covid vaccines, both past and future.

In the days after Stephen’s death, Charlotte and her family were left to scramble around in the dark for answers. At that point, when Covid was still ripping through hospitals and communities in Britain, during a severe second wave, the blood clotting issue linked to the vaccines had yet to surface. Knowledge on the matter was absent. Those seen to be questioning the jabs were dismissed.

It was not until 8 February that Stephen’s passing was reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Before then, there was no way that the hospital experts who treated her husband could explain his death, Charlotte says. But as the link between blood clotting and the vaccines slowly became clearer, the family remained neglected, she says.

“We were looking for support and what we could do,” Charlotte says. “We know there are loads of other families out there whose loved ones have suffered adverse reactions. There’s an absence of support and information for these people.”

The greatest source of frustration and anger for the Wrights has arisen from their attempts to navigate the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme. Under legislation passed in 1979, people who suffer harm from vaccines can claim damages from the government of up to £120,000. But to do so, victims must prove that they are at least 60 per cent disabled as a result of vaccination – a threshold that is seen as too high.

The VDPS was originally introduced as part of efforts to maintain faith in the DTP vaccine, administered to infants, following an unjustified safety scare. Dr Claas Kirchhelle, a historian of medicine at University College Dublin, says it was the government’s way of proving to the public that “we will care for you if anything were to go wrong”. Such payments also helped to keep any damaging or disruptive compensation claims out of the courts.

Although the Covid jabs were added to the VDPS late last year, the outdated bureaucracy of the scheme means it is unsuitable for a pandemic vaccination programme which has seen millions of people inoculated.

“When it came round to filling out the form, it was so atrocious,” says Charlotte. “There wasn’t even a relevant box for Stephen.” Given there is no acknowledgement of death on the form, which is veered towards children who may be suffering a vaccine-related disability, the Wrights were forced to create a box to say that Stephen had died. “That was more hurtful to me because if he was disabled he’d still be here.”

To make matters worse, the family has yet to receive confirmation as to whether their application has been received or processed. “We’ve heard absolutely nothing,” Charlotte says. “We have no idea if they’ve got it.”

There is also the issue that £120,000 – the equivalent of £470,000 today – won’t come close to covering the loss of earnings following Stephen’s death. Many of the other 65 families will be confronted with similar financial concerns.

Charlotte and Stephen Wright on their wedding day (Graham Baker Photography)

As for those many more people who have suffered long-term damage following an adverse reaction, they now face the challenge of meeting the high disability threshold set out by the VDPS. Just 15 per cent of claims are successful.

For Charlotte, the buck stops with the government. “They have the means to reform this scheme,” she says. “Just leaving it as it is, that’s hard to take.”

More emotional support is needed too, she says. “Even if it is some sort of hotline for these families,” Charlotte adds. “And acknowledgement that our applications have been received.”

She has started a petition calling on the House of Commons to discuss the issue. It has more than 3,000 signatures but needs 10,000 to receive a parliamentary response. The Wrights are also one of 20 affected families that have signed a letter, organised by Sarah Moore, a lawyer at Hausfeld law firm, which was sent to various MPs “seeking their assistance in pushing for legislative change” to ensure affected individuals are provided with “meaningful support”.

Charlotte’s campaigning has meanwhile caught the attention of other families in similar situations. She has offered support to a number of people, “pointing them in the right direction,” due to the lack of information out there. “I think it’s the government’s responsibility to do that,” she says. “I’m happy to help but it should already be there.”

But her attempts to raise awareness within the public domain have also been targeted by social media trolls who have accused her of challenging the vaccines. “It’s not good enough to blame the people that have lost loved ones and call them anti-vax and let them deal with all the negativity because they’re not being supported,” she says. As with many things, the nuances of this sensitive topic have been lost in the black hole of social media.

Despite everything, Charlotte takes comfort in the support network that she has around her, in the form of her two children, parents, older brother, in-laws and close friends. “I’m privileged,” she says. “If I was older and didn’t use social media or have a phone or computer, and I lost my husband, then I wouldn’t know where to go.”

Charlotte has taken on this burden out of a desire to ensure that some good can come from her husband’s death, and this is what’s driving her forward. It is a sadly unavoidable fact that as more people are vaccinated in the months and years to come, a minority will suffer rare, even possibly fatal, reactions. It is imperative that the government looks after these individuals and does what it can to “maintain the public’s confidence in the vaccines”, says Charlotte. The fight against Covid depends on it.