A THORNBURY woman who is 'speechless with anger' over 'Boris parties' has shared a heartbreaking video struggling to speak to her now dead mum in a care home - over SKYPE.

Jane Smith, 66, has slammed Boris Johnson after being limited to just 20 minute long Skype calls with her mother who passed away last year.

Jane's mother Rita died in May last year in a care home near Bristol, at the age of 95, the same time Downing Street officials were accused of throwing illegal garden parties.

She shared a heartbreaking video on social media of one of her limited Skype calls with her deteriorating mother which she described as "barbaric and inhumane."

The same month that Jane's mother Rita passed away, the prime minister was caught attending two garden parties in a matter of days, which he has since apologised for.

Jane from Thornbury said: "I've got no nice words to describe Boris Johnson.

"He sets the rules for everyone else yet doesn't follow them himself.

"He said nobody told me the rules, but he should know as the Prime Minister what you can and can't do better than anyone.

"I am speechless with anger, especially when people are having parties and I didn't have free access to my mum, even when she was dying.

"Those three weeks before she died, it was only the last five days that I had free access as she was end of life and I was an essential caregiver.

"It's barbaric and inhumane, in mum's last two years, I hardly saw her."

Jane was limited to very few visits to see her mum in the weeks before she passed away, and was previously limited to a short Skype call once a week.

In her final years Rita suffered with vascular dementia, glaucoma, severe hearing loss and an abdominal aortic aneurism so talking over Skype was extremely difficult.

She added: "I was allowed one Skype call a week, for twenty minutes.

"Nine times out of ten my mum would be asleep and she wouldn't wake up.

"She couldn't hear properly and couldn't see properly, so when there was a Skype call, she wasn't used to using iPads or anything like that.

"She didn't know where to look and could hardly hear me or see me, so most of the time I could only talk to her for a couple of minutes if she was awake."

In the month before she passed away, Jane was able to move her mum Rita to another care home where she was able to become an essential caregiver to her mother.

Prior to this, she was unable to spend their final Christmas together at the first care home whilst Boris Johnson was celebrating the festive period with colleagues.

As a result of the emotional stress of not being able to support her mother, Jane was diagnosed with reactive depression and PTSD symptoms.

"I struggled to see her in the first lockdown, right through until April 19, 2021," Jane said.

"I had been fighting to see her for over a year.

"I had to change her care homes as I wasn't allowed to be an essential caregiver in the first one which was ridiculous.

"The whole ordeal was so tragic and emotionally draining I started having nightmares about the care home and how my mum was being treated.

"I'd wake up in the night screaming sometimes or suddenly start frantically looking around for something I thought she might have needed.

"When I saw a psychiatrist they told me it was as a result of the emotional trauma I was going through."

Since mid way through the pandemic and her painful experience with Rita, Jane, a semi retired pharmacist, has been campaigning to lift visiting bans on care homes.

Her 'unlock care' campaign involved contacting MPs to get them to stop issuing guidance that could be ignored by care homes - and instead mandate visits.

Jane organised several marches for her cause through London and in her hometown - including a daily 'March For Mum'.

She added: "What people need to understand is these elderly people are having their human rights stripped from them by being locked away from society.

"They're the only demographic this is happening to and something needs to be done about it.

"Last year 40,000 people in care homes died of Covid but 176,000 people died of what's known as isolation.

"That's where people have just given up and stopped eating and drinking because they've felt abandoned and that their lives were no longer worth living - that's the main killer."

She added: "Its obviously too late for Mum and I, but so many other families are still separated - after nearly two years."