Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for tabling the motion on long Covid. I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate because I have been contacted by many people who are unwell. Their lives have been turned upside down. They have gone from being fit and healthy to being sick and exhausted. People are searching for answers. They want their lives and their health back. Those people deserve to be represented. They deserve to be heard. The motion from the Regional Group provides an opportunity for this and I thank them.

The motion calls for action on many fronts, including fully staffing long Covid and post-Covid clinics, as already committed to by the HSE in September 2021. I think only one third of promised whole-time equivalents were in place by last month. This is not acceptable. The motion also calls for the establishment of a multidisciplinary public health team incorporating patient advocates who will review and manage long Covid care in the entire population. It is crucial that the patient voice is heard. There are too many silos and too much compartmentalised thinking when it comes to treating and supporting people with long Covid. We need to prise open some closed minds when it comes to dealing with the totality of what long Covid includes. The motion also calls for the establishment of a dedicated long Covid clinic for children and, crucially, for the recognition of long Covid as an occupational illness for all healthcare and front-line workers.

I want to read a few lines from one of the many people who have contacted me on this issue.

I'm a 41 year old nurse wife and mother of five from north county Leitrim. I contracted Covid at work in January 2021 pre vaccines with inadequate PPE. Fast forward over 18 months later I've still not returned to work and remain unwell. Covid has massively impacted my health. I've now got ongoing shortness of breath, muscular pain, nerve pain, joint pain, fatigue and brain fog. Pre covid I worked full-time, now I need to lie down after a trip to Lidl.... Covid has stolen my health, career and my life as I knew it from me. It is so disheartening that Government have still not acknowledged Covid as Occupational Illness. I got this illness because of work and I feel like HSE and Government are leaving me to rot. Its soul destroying and a awful way to treat the very ones who had no choice but to go to work with no vaccine and inadequate PPE.

That is the strongest case that can be made for recognising long Covid as an occupational injury for healthcare and front-line workers.

I have contacted the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, about the need for a long Covid clinic for the north west, to be located in Sligo, but so far there has been no progress. Nationally there are an estimated 336,000 adults affected by long Covid. This number keeps increasing. We need a long Covid clinic in Sligo. I want to use this opportunity to support Professor Jack Lambert and his long Covid clinic in the Mater.

An issue raised by many of the speakers is that of contract workers, security and cleaning staff who have not yet been paid the pandemic payment.

Deputy Nash organised a meeting yesterday at which four of them spoke. I was ashamed that they had to come to Leinster House concerning what should have been paid to them long ago. Before the introduction of personal protective equipment, masks and vaccinations, etc., they protected people in healthcare settings. They should be paid and thanked.

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