Biggest long-Covid clinic faces closure within weeks unless HSE provides funding

The long-running clinic, which was seeing up to 20 new patients with the debilitating condition a month, will be forced to shut down without the financial backing.

UCD Professor of Medicine Jack Lambert, who is an infectious disease consultant at the Mater, said a business case for the continued operation of the clinic was submitted to the HSE last July.

Now, just weeks away from possible closure, there is still no clarity on its future.

“It is in no man’s land and the matter is going around in circles. Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is aware of the situation. We will close at the end of the month without funding,” Prof Lambert said.

“It is not fair to people with long-Covid from inner city Dublin and it is also not fair to healthcare workers from the Mater, Temple Street Hospital, the Rotunda and other hospitals, who we are seeing and who are getting better.”

Prof Lambert said the clinic has seen more than 1,500 patients so far, more than the other Irish clinics combined.

“We were seeing 25 patients a week and have cut back to 15. We were seeing up to 20 new patients every month, and the rest were follow-up patients,” he said.

“We had to close to new patients in the last two months and now have a waiting list of 50 people with long-Covid. They have been referred to the long-Covid clinic in St Vincent’s Hospital but it has a five- to six-month waiting list. We have always seen patients in one to two months.”

Studies indicate up to 30pc of people who get the virus can have long-Covid.

The majority of people’s health will improve over time, but symptoms persist for a large number of people for more than a year.

The HSE is funding designated long-Covid clinics at Tallaght Hospital, Beaumont Hospital, St James’s Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital, Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Limerick, and Galway University Hospital.

But they are only partially staffed, leaving many patients with the debilitating symptoms of long-Covid – including severe fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath and aches – without an adequate service.

Prof Lambert set up the clinic in the Mater Hospital in response to the needs of patients, using research grant money he got from the Health Research Board.

However, after that ran out, the hospital continued to run the clinic, although it did not receive any funding for its operation.

It is the only clinic so far to produce Irish evidence-based research on long-Covid, showing significant evidence of brain-related neurological and psychiatric complications among patients with the condition.

The research, which followed 155 patients over a period of 14 months, found almost a fifth had moderate to severe depression one year on from their Covid infection, while almost three-quarters had concerning alcohol use.

The studies, carried out by north Dublin GPs, determined that psychological and psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression and PTSD are much more widespread in long-Covid patients than in the wider public.

Prof Lambert, who carried out one of the studies, said it was anticipated that the lasting complications of the infection would be primarily related to the heart and lungs during the first wave – but it clearly indicated this was not the case.

He has criticised the HSE’s care plan, which he said was too concentrated on pulmonary complications to the detriment of people who had predominantly brain symptoms.

The HSE was yesterday unable to provide an update on whether it would provide the funding to keep the Mater clinic open.