Long-COVID: UK support branded a ‘disgrace’ as nurse recounts moving to Germany for treatment
Posted 20 January 2022 - 14:15
Rebecca Logan contracted COVID-19 in April 2020 and tells parliamentary committee she moved to Germany in the hope she ‘can be believed and treated’
A Belfast nurse who developed long-COVID after catching the virus in April 2020 while working without adequate personal protective equipment has told a parliamentary committee how she was forced to move to Germany for treatment.
Rebecca Logan said she experiences extreme fatigue, tinnitus, brain fog, cognitive dysfunction, joint pain, muscle pain and weakness, breathlessness, and has had to give up her nursing career as a result.
Nurse tells MPs of GP dismissing her concerns about long-COVID
On Tuesday, giving evidence to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on coronavirus, she told MPs and peers that she has relocated to Germany in the hope she ‘can be believed and treated.’
‘Every day I wake as though I have not slept,’ she told the committee. ‘The fatigue is crippling. If it wasn’t for my family, I would not want to continue living like this.’
Ms Logan told the committee her GP had dismissed her concerns about long-COVID and instead told her she was depressed, and that she’d had no support from the long-COVID service in Northern Ireland.
She is now receiving H.E.L.P Apheresis and anticoagulation therapy in Germany, treatment that is currently unavailable in the UK. The treatment is designed to target microclots found in the blood of people diagnosed with long-COVID, which can cause symptoms, such as fatigue and muscle weakness.
‘Personally, and for many others with long-COVID, we have been disbelieved and dismissed and received constant gaslighting,’ Ms Logan said while giving evidence.
‘So, we have not sought the help from our GPs that we probably should have demanded.’
Committee chair says treatment of Ms Logan and other front-line workers a ‘disgrace’
According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, there are around 1.3 million people in the UK living with long-COVID.
She said: ‘That the people who protected this country during the pandemic are now being forced into exile for treatment is a national disgrace and there are concerns that the experience of these people in Northern Ireland is being repeated right across the UK.
‘The UK government must take urgent steps to make these therapies available here and as we face a new pandemic of long-COVID, they must also recognise the condition as an occupational illness, offering formal guidance to employers.’
Following Ms Logan’s evidence, Greens MP Caroline Lucas called on the government to make long-COVID an occupational disease to allow nurses and other NHS workers to get compensation for being exposed to the illness at work.
The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, which determines occupational diseases, has been contacted for comment.
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