'Our Healthcare System Is Not Remotely Ready For 'Post-Covid' America'
Last edited Sat Aug 15, 2020, 09:59 AM - Edit history (1)
'Our healthcare system is not remotely ready for 'post-Covid' America.' By Jessa Crispin, The Guardian, Aug. 14, 2020. ‘Recovered’ Covid patients may have serious longterm symptoms- and millions of people just lost health insurance. Excerpts. Ed.:
Kriss Morton, 53, was enjoying her new job at a catering company.. Then one day in March, her boss, alarmed by Morton’s peaky appearance, sent her home. Indiana had not yet started its lockdown, and Morton’s early symptoms could have been anything. The weather had been weird that spring – freezing one day, warm the next – and she assumed her cold-like symptoms were just that. But the disease progressed. Soon she was dealing with gastrointestinal issues, fever, coughing. She couldn’t breathe. Her voice changed. “You can tell, right?” she asked me when we spoke on the phone. “I’ve got my Covid voice.” She sounds like a lifetime, two-pack-a-day smoker, and she paused a couple times a minute throughout our conversation to catch her breath or move the phone from her face to cough.
She’s a “long-hauler,” she told me. That’s what they call themselves on a Facebook group she joined for people struggling with what they believe are unresolved, long-term Covid-19 symptoms.
Her symptoms alleviated after about three and a half weeks, but they never fully went away. And soon there were new issues to deal with. Mysterious, painful bruises. Burst capillaries. Aching joints. Headaches. Exhaustion. Those symptoms have been with her since May..Because Morton does not have health insurance, and therefore no primary care physician, she never received a positive Covid-19 diagnosis because she could not get tested. When she fell ill in March, tests were scarce..Much has been written about how the failures of our institutions, like the dismantling of the public health system, have contributed to the unprecedented spread of the virus in our country. Less discussed is how these institutions will need to be not just rebuilt but reconfigured for the post-pandemic world.
Taking care of the long-haulers, the socially isolated, those recovering from surgical intervention, and exhausted caretakers is going to require a radical re-imagining of healthcare in America.
We have some of the best hospitals in the world, but only the privileged few can afford access. The number of jobs that come with full health benefits has been shrinking. A growing number of Americans can’t afford dental care, don’t have a primary care physician, have delayed treatment because of cost, and can’t access mental health services. Millions carry medical debt, and others are dying because they can’t access health services. Five million people lost health insurance this spring alone. The issue is deeper than just health insurance and affordability, though. The symptoms that many self-identified Covid-19 long-haulers are reporting are the kinds of chronic conditions that American medicine is least adept at managing.
*The 2 most debilitating symptoms that long-hauler Facebook groups report are headaches and fatigue, or “brain fog”...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/14/coronavirus-covid-america-healthcare
(I'm sure I read a piece recently about Chris Cuomo of CNN saying he had some lingering issues, including 'brain fog.' ___________________________
*Also: 'Sheer Fear': Mental Health Impacts of Covid-19 Come To Fore.' Cases of PTSD, anxiety, depression and insomnia lead to calls for routine follow-up of survivors. The Guardian, Aug. 14, 2020.
Two months after falling ill with Covid-19, Julie had her first hallucination. “It started slowly. I was struggling to track the plot of a TV show, then I couldn’t read the words on my phone screen,” she said. Things deteriorated, with an overwhelming sense of her mind and body being consumed. “I know it sounds crazy, and I don’t know how to properly articulate it, but in the moment it really felt like something was taking over my brain and my body."
“I was so convinced that was happening that I made my sister promise to remember a code word so she’d know if I was still in my body.” Amid these delusions, Julie, 36, from Minnesota, was eventually taken to hospital by her family. “My mom told the ER doctor that I was recovering from Covid and that they were concerned this was a strange side-effect. He agreed it was possible, but didn’t seem to have any treatment to suggest.”
Julie is not alone. As the long and lingering effects of Covid on physical health are emerging, so too are its impacts on mental health. NHS England has announced that more staff are being trained to treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in preparation for a potential increase in demand for mental health services as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/14/sheer-fear-mental-health-impacts-of-covid-19-come-to-fore
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