Ms Pamela Morrison:

I contacted the ICGP early last year. We wanted to collaborate with it with regard to the experts in long Covid, generally, or the patients because we are up on all of the research, etc. We were told the ICGP was working on some training and that it would be rolled out. We were very keen to collaborate. We wanted patient and public involvement in research, PPI, engagement. The ICGP said it had PPI engagement from the HSE but later informed us that PPI engagement and the health and social care professions, HSCPs, had been stood down. We were then told there was training that would be published in an online GP magazine which we could not get access to through the ICGP, so we contacted the publisher. We got a copy of the training and essentially, as Ms O'Connell alluded to in her opening statement, the training was predominantly around cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, was psychological and around how to refer. It was not actually what I would consider to be expert knowledge and it was not being translated onto the ground.

From my own personal experience, our immune systems have been battered so when we were made aware a vaccine called Novavax was available within the country we all wanted to get it because it was non-mRNA. We did not want our systems to be overly confused. It was a nightmare to try to get access to that vaccine. I spoke to my doctor, who had never heard of it. I spoke to my pharmacist, who had never heard of it. We had to chase down where the Novavax was via the HSE Live system. Many people who have long Covid are immunocompromised. Many had to wait from October last year to early this year to get Novavax and people who could not really travel had to travel from places such as Waterford to Limerick to get a vaccination. I hope that gives the Deputy some idea.