Susanna Reid fights back tears on GMB over heartbreaking story of mother unable to see autistic son

Susanna Reid was overcome with emotion on today’s Good Morning Britain as she spoke about an autistic man torn apart from his mother during the pandemic.

The GMB host was discussing the story in light of Government plans to roll-out rapid Covid-19 testing to care home enable residents to see their loved-ones for Christmas.

Reid began reading a message from a mother whose 26-year-old son lives in a care home because of his severe autism.

The pair have been separated for two months owing to coronavirus restrictions.

Reid began the story: "Suzanne on Facebook says, 'My son is severely autistic and lives in a care home.

Her voice then began to break as she said: “He's distraught he can't see me... or.. or come home to visit."

Dr Hilary Jones then stepped in to support his co-host to give her a moment to regain her composure.

“It’s heartbreaking. It’s a very cruel consequence of this disease,” he explained as he acknowledged that elderly people “are coming to the end of their lives so they need to be in touch with the people who love them most”.

Reid then apologised to viewers and explained why the story had had such an impact on her

"I'm so sorry I was affected, but your stories coming in on the people you can't see in care homes… This care home testing pilot is going out to 20 care homes, this should be in place in every care home now.”

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed he had personal experience of care home heartbreak.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is heart-breaking, isn’t it? And really difficult.

“I know this from personal circumstances as well in terms of members of my own family … who are in the same sort of situation. It is very difficult.

“The problem is that we know when this virus gets into care homes, we know that people in care homes are particularly vulnerable to it and it runs rife, and so we both need to protect people from the virus but also do that in as a humane a way as possible, and we know the impact on people’s health, let alone everything else, on not being able to see visitors.”

Mr Hancock said he hoped to have testing for care home visitors in place for all care homes in England “by Christmas”, with a pilot currently taking place in 20 homes, but admitted there were challenges given the sector is largely run by the private sector.

“This roll-out will be a challenge but we’ve got to make sure the right rules and protocols are in place so that the testing keeps people safe,” he said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in