The BMA and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have asked the government to designate long term conditions caused by covid-19 as occupational diseases. This would mean that staff with these conditions could receive financial assistance in recognition that they had, most probably, caught the initial infection at work.
In November last year the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC) published a paper recommending that five specific conditions be added to a list of prescribed diseases for which industrial injuries disability benefit is payable.1 The five conditions include persisting pneumonitis or lung fibrosis after acute covid-19 pneumonitis and persisting pulmonary hypertension caused by a pulmonary embolism developing between three days before and 90 days after a diagnosis of covid-19. Ischaemic stroke and …
Unable to work or to play with their children, forced to sell their homes or facing insolvency doctors with long covid deserve more support from the government and the NHS, writes Adele Waters
When Kelly Fearnley first stepped on to a surgical ward as a doctor at Bradford Royal Infirmary in August 2020 her head was still buzzing with delight at having finally achieved her dream of qualifying in medicine.
As a mature student she had financed herself through a medical degree by working shifts as a pharmacy assistant. Now, aged 34, she was ready to get stuck into her foundation training.
Early months were spent dealing with emergency surgical patients but by autumn, as the second wave of covid-19 struck, the hospital opened several covid wards and she was deployed to work on one of them.
She remembers: “I walked onto the ward full of covid patients to find only plastic pinnies and flimsy blue surgical masks. I’d expected long sleeved surgical gowns and FFP3 masks. I remember aski
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