<
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/500537/taranaki-healthcare-staff-volunteer-to-help-colleagues-with-long-covid>
'Staff at Taranaki Hospital have set up their own clinic to help colleagues
suffering from Long Covid.
It has no formal funding and relies on physios, occupational therapists and
occupational health nurses have been given time while on shift to care for
staff with the disease.
Rebecca, a nurse at Taranaki Hospital, said Long Covid made her so forgetful
she thought she had early-onset Alzheimer's. She would get in the car and
forget where she was going, or leave appliances on for hours.
"I'd cook dinner and just forget to turn the oven off. My husband would come
home and say, 'Did you know that oven's been going for 24 hours?' Or I'd be
boiling potatoes, take them off and just leave the gas hobs going."
Long Covid made Rebecca - a normally healthy person - exhausted by a persistent
cough and uncontrollably emotional.
"I was walking around nearly incontinent at times. I'd beaten up my pelvic
floor muscles with all the coughing. Then the coughing makes you tired and
fatigued, then you're so tired, you're emotional. I've never been so tearful in
my life."
As a staff member, Rebecca was referred to Taranaki Hospital's free Long Covid
clinic. It was not until she started receiving care that her symptoms improved
and she could return to work full-time.
"People go, 'Pffft, Long Covid. I did Covid it was easy, it was no problem.
It's harder having a cold'. So when people would say that I was like, 'Oh my
god, what's wrong with me? Why am I struggling so much?' It was actually quite
nice having someone come along and say, 'Yes, what you have is genuine'."
Fy Dunford, a cardio respiratory physio, saw a need for healthcare workers to
receive Long Covid support early on in the pandemic.
"We were doing so in cafes, dining halls, in the corridor, or halfway up a
stairwell. We would catch someone struggling and start to have that
conversation."
This led her team to set up the Long Covid clinic in Taranaki in June 2022.
Dunford said the team of hospital physios, occupational therapists, speech
therapists, social workers and dietitians had helped more than 20 staff
members.
"Healthcare workers have a relatively high level of exposure to Covid-19. It
makes good sense to help the staff who help and care for others."'
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: October 19, 2023
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-91266658
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
