Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Before I let Deputy Shortall in I have a couple of questions of my own.

In the lead-up to this meeting, I spoke to several people who have long Covid. Most of those people have a sense of frustration. They feel there is a lack of awareness of their situation. Some are fairly critical of their GPs, that they are at a loss and do not really know what to do with these patients. Medication has been provided that is unsuitable. One person told me codeine was prescribed. This person has had long Covid for the past two years. It does not seem to be going away, and that person was concerned about the medication being recommended. Another person with long Covid that I spoke to ended up getting clots on the lungs. There was also an impact on the heart and muscle loss. This person was told to avoid overexertion, because that could bring on a stroke or a heart attack. We have, therefore, many people with different types of long Covid. All of them are frustrated, though, by the lack of urgency. In the context of some of the questions asked, it will have been heard that the clinics have been set up, but that they are not fully staffed. This is one of the issues in this regard.

Another thing people were initially complaining about was that those with heart complaints were sent to heart specialists and those with lung complaints were sent to lung specialists, and the same happened with those with neurological complaints. People were being sent to different specialists. When Professor Jack Lambert appeared before the committee, he spoke about having a one-stop shop. This would make sense, and I think this is what we are trying to do. He was very complimentary of the British system which had brought all these elements together within a clinic setting. The frustration expressed by Professor Lambert, and it is also expressed by other clinicians, concerns the fact that the British system has not developed from its initial positive start. It has not learned from international practice since. I refer again to the fact that we are still waiting on this report. We do not know the extent of the challenge faced.

Is there more of a chance that people who have had Covid-19 multiple times will develop long Covid? I know some people have had Covid-19 four times. Is there more of a chance, therefore, of developing long Covid from having more infections? The concern around other variants was mentioned. For many of the people I spoke to, though, Omicron seemed to be the variant that had brought on long Covid in most cases where people had contacted me. Some of the other variants are much milder, or, rather, the experience can be mild for one person, but strangely that does not necessarily mean the same thing will happen to another person. Is there any evidence available in this regard?