Long Covid – the fight for justice

In 2020, GP Amy Small was sitting in her kitchen – rain pouring through her leaky roof – with her household income decimated and one child still in nursery, full-time. 

Dr Small had contracted Covid while being given ‘inadequate’ PPE and then passed it on to her husband and children. The family watched their Sats plummet, proned themselves at home to alleviate their difficulty breathing, and stayed in their house to protect the NHS. Both children recovered, but Dr Small and her husband were left with persistent fatigue, myalgia, brain fog and a host of other symptoms. Dr Small lost her job as a GP in Lothian, expelled from her partnership, and her partner’s income took a big hit, too. 

Dr Small sought help from the Cameron Fund – the benevolent charity for GPs in need.

‘All because I went to work and was horribly and utterly let down by the unpreparedness and sheer incompetence of our government,’ Dr Small said, speaking at the BMA annual representative meeting in Liverpool.

‘But I’m a lucky one. I have largely recovered and found work. A GP colleague recently revealed she had an estimated loss of £2.5 million in career earnings.’

Dr Small spoke out at the BMA’s ARM in 2021, too, urging the recognition of acute and Long Covid as occupational diseases. Belgium, Germany, Spain, Denmark, France and Canada have all managed to do so. But, here in the UK? ‘We’re no further on,’ Dr Small said.

Dr Small is far from alone and has tried to support colleagues and campaign for action ever since. One GP colleague was left needing to ask a foodbank to provide Christmas dinner so Dr Small arranged a crowd funder to provide them with support.

Nora Murray-Cavanagh, a GP in Edinburgh and deputy chair of the BMA Scottish council, proposed the motion at the ARM which demanded that Long Covid should be officially recognised as an occupational disease for healthcare workers.

The motion – which was overwhelmingly passed in full – deplored the failure of governments across the UK to provide adequate support and compensation for healthcare workers affected by Long Covid and referenced the ‘shameful refusal’ of the UK government to accept the recommendation of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council that health workers with the condition be able to claim industrial injuries disablement benefit.

The motion also calls on the BMA to review current diagnostic criteria and management options for Long Covid to ensure doctors have access to ‘appropriate care, medical retirement pathways and compensation’ and insists on ‘equitable access to proper diagnostics, specialist care, and treatment for healthcare workers with the condition.

Dr Murray-Cavanagh said: ‘This is not just about money - it’s about justice, dignity, and a duty of care. 

‘Doctors showed up unvaccinated, unprotected, unsupported through the darkest days of the pandemic. We all know doctors who caught Covid. Many of us caught Covid. Some of us never recovered. 
‘Some of us lost our jobs, our partnerships, others struggled to return to work.

‘We are being denied justice. Doctors’ lives and careers are being dismantled.’

Internal medicine trainee Elizabeth Chandler also spoke in favour of the motion, telling the meeting that she had been struck down with Covid but was ‘lucky’ to recover well. 

Dr Chandler also raised concerns about the link between climate change and future pandemics.

She said: ‘We know climate change is a massive issue, and we know that pandemics will be more common because of climate change. In my lifetime there will likely be another pandemic. 

‘We need to support people who suffered through the pandemic and are still suffering through the long-term effects of long covid. I worry about the medical students, the secondary school students and the primary school students who are going to grow up and watch the people who want to care for our patients suffer.’

Dr Murray-Cavanagh added: ‘We cannot – we will not – allow Long Covid to become the next ME or chronic fatigue syndrome: poorly understood and stigmatised. This is an occupational disease. The evidence is there. We must make the call for change. If the BMA won’t stand up for doctors disabled by their work who will? It’s not just the right thing to do, it's the very least we can do for our colleagues.’

In 2023 the BMA published a report – Over-exposed and under-protected: the long-term impact of COVID-19 on doctors – which sought the view of more than 600 doctors who had post-acute Covid complications. 

The report highlighted the debilitating effects post-acute Covid has had on a large number of doctors, both professionally and personally – profoundly altering doctors’ lives and contributing to a loss of the NHS workforce, adding further strain to overstretched UK healthcare services.

In his speech at the beginning of the ARM, BMA council chair Phil Banfield also referenced ongoing campaigning to ‘ensure that Long Covid is treated as an industrial disease and for proper protection in the workplace’.