I'm British and living in the UK, so under law I can't be fired for taking time off for an emergency with any of my dependents, and I'm entitled to "parental leave" for things like appointments[1]. This is the absolute minimum I would expect a country to afford its citizens.
This is how this problem should be dealt with at the macro level. I find it saddening to see the micro-level impact of not having these sorts of laws in place.
But how a company handles it's legal obligations is also interesting. When my father died the company that employed me at the time said, essentially, "Go away and come back when you feel ready". This despite the fact that the only other member of my direct team was the other side of the world and there was no one with domain expertise was available so it would have been infuriating for them to cover support. There was certainly no mention of statutory pay or anything.
They also let me leave on multiple occasions at short notice in the preceeding years when he was ill.
Their being incredibly generous with compassionate leave allowed me to deal with the personal stuff without worrying about money/job stuff. It also meant that I worked remotely, covered support, and generally made sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible.
These choices make business sense, as well as being the decent thing to do.
We shouldn't need a law for this. From the facts presented in the article seems like a case where an employer can "do the right thing".
Weird thing is HR let her go after the Talia Jayne issue the other day - HR dept should be plugged in to a lot more stuff than just this single employee's situation.
This is how this problem should be dealt with at the macro level. I find it saddening to see the micro-level impact of not having these sorts of laws in place.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights