Posted 15 March 2023 - 05:00
Posted 15 March 2023 - 05:00
News
Nurse ‘destroyed’ by long-COVID in plea for compensation
Nurse who faces losing her home and job will deliver petition to Downing St urging help for key workers who contracted disease on pandemic front line
Nurse who faces losing her home and job will deliver petition to Downing St urging help for key workers who contracted disease on pandemic front line
A nurse who faces losing her home and job due to long-COVID will hand deliver a petition to Downing Street today calling for compensation for key workers whose lives have been ‘destroyed’ by coronavirus.
Caroline MacDonald, along with fellow nurse Rachel Hext and midwife Sarah Sutton, travelled to London with the petition demanding a compensation and pension scheme for key workers who contracted the disease working on the pandemic front line.
All three are now disabled and suffer with debilitating long-term symptoms that mean they can no longer work. Ms MacDonald told Nursing Standard she faces losing her job and may have to sell her flat as she cannot access benefits because she is a homeowner.
Nurses feel abandoned and hope petition will be a step towards securing access to financial support
On the day that chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver his spring budget in the House of Commons, they hope their petition – signed by more than 125,000 people – will be a step towards securing access to financial support from the government, which they feel has abandoned them.
Ms MacDonald, who travelled from Edinburgh to deliver the petition, said: ‘ COVID was like a wrecking ball through my life. I know that currently nurses and other key workers are fighting to get fair pay, so I’m realistic and probably pessimistic.
‘Getting money out the chancellor is going to be like getting blood out of a stone. But I have to try. I have to try for all those nurses, doctors, bus drivers, shop workers and postal workers who did as they were asked and risked getting COVID to keep our country running. Then they were abandoned if they got ill.’
Last month the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus called on the government to reclassify the disease so that key workers who caught it at work during the pandemic can access support and compensation.
Special sick pay for NHS staff introduced during the pandemic has now ended
Special sick pay for NHS staff was introduced during the pandemic to support those off work with COVID-19 or long-COVID but was withdrawn on 1 August 2022.
Some long-serving staff were still able to access payments for a further six months, until it was completely scrapped on 1 March 2023. Ms Hext was among those who lost access to sick payments and featured in a BBC Panorama investigation into the thousands of workers losing access to the payments.
Ms MacDonald said workers left disabled by long-COVID need a compensation scheme similar to that for the armed forces – which compensates for any injury, illness or death caused while serving – so that they can survive, otherwise nurses will be left relying on food banks, in spiralling debt or homeless.
The government has been contacted for comment.
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