NHS staff sick with Long Covid now face losing their jobs as Tory ministers cut off support.
As many as 10,000 NHS workers with Long Covid could make a claim for compensation, MPs say.
Long Covid victims’ lives have been ruined by symptoms that include chest pain, brain fog, headaches, joint pain and depression.
But NHS staff off work with Long Covid will be put on half pay for six month from March 1, and face losing their jobs after that.
Some NHS Trusts have already fired staff with Long Covid, mainly those, like our two case studies, with a short length of service at the time they fell ill.
But MPs on the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus have told the Mirror NHS workers could have a claim under employment law.
Chairwoman Layla Moran told the Mirror: “New evidence provided to the all-party group on coronavirus should set alarm bells ringing in government. With the withdrawal of Long Covid pay support due next month, ministers risk exposing the NHS to years of costly tribunal cases.”
During the pandemic, normal sick pay rules were suspended for all frontline hospital staff under the Covid Special Pay Scheme.
From September 2022, those off with Long Covid reverted to standard sick pay rules set out in contracts.
Staff with Long Covid could claim full pay for as long as six months, then half pay for six months. Reduced payments kick in from March 1. Midwife Maria Esslinger-Raven is campaigning for more support for NHS staff with Long Covid. Her petition has 165,000 signatures. She said: “Long Covid stripped me of my old life. I used to be active, academic and loved life. Now I struggle with basic household jobs, cannot work and struggle to wash my hair.
“I caught Covid at the height of the pandemic, working as a midwife. We worked with limited PPE. Now the Government has taken away my sick pay.” Sources told the Mirror that during the pandemic “incident reports”, which should have been completed when staff came to harm, were not filled in when they were suspected of contracting Covid during their shift.
This made it impossible for staff to prove Covid was caught at work. A&E nurse Karen, 51, a mum-of-four whose husband died 18 months before the pandemic struck, has been off work for 12 months with Long Covid, which has left her breathless and fatigued. She now faces losing her job and only income.
Her teenage sons had begged her not to risk her life by going back to work during the pandemic.
She assured them she would be protected by PPE, but Karen said: “It became apparent very quickly that we were not safe.” She contracted Covid twice, and believes both times she was infected at work, but to continue receiving sick pay, she must prove it – “a difficult, if not impossible task”.
Karen said: “If I had died at least my kids would have got £60,000.” Holiday pay takes her to March, but she said: “After that I get nothing.”
NHS England said: “NHS organisations should support all employees affected by long Covid in line with national guidance.”
Former 'gym bunny' loses job to Long Covid
Once a weight-training “gym bunny”, Brenda Eadie has lost her health and her job since contracting Long Covid.
Brenda, from Glasgow, caught Covid-19 in March 202, while employed by the NHS as a nurse, treating prison inmates.
The mum needed oxygen treatment in hospital and still has awful symptoms. Brenda says: “If I do anything too strenuous I spend three days in bed.
“I have no grip power in my hands. My speech isn’t great and I can’t multi-task. It’s like the batteries in my brain run out.”
She returned to work a month after catching Covid, but says her “severe brain fog” got so bad it was “kind of like dementia”.
She resigned herself to medical retirement, but says she was dismissed and left to survive on £334 a month Universal Credit.
Brenda says: “I have been left destitute. I got my P45 through in the post today. To go to work and catch an illness causing lifelong disability and then just be discarded is disgusting.”
Student's life has 'literally stopped'
As the pandemic hit, Aimee was a student nurse and she did her placements on Covid wards, never thinking of the dangers as “it felt like we were at war”.
She got a permanent job shortly before contracting the virus in September 2021. Left with Long Covid, she says: “My life has literally stopped.
“When I’m moving, it feels like I’m trying to walk up a sand dune with the worst hangover and flu on top. My headaches get so bad I can’t have any light. The chest pain almost mimics a heart attack. My life is so limited now.”
Her short tenure as a staff employee meant when she was dismissed in December 2022 she was given one week’s pay.
Aimee, who has two teenage children, had bought a house in Wiltshire with her partner when Covid hit. Her £27,000 salary has been replaced with a £340-a- month Personal Independence Payment and they are now struggling with the mortgage.
She says: “I 100% caught this at work, but how do I prove it?”
