‘The NHS sold out its staff’: Doctors whose lives were devastated by long COVID to sue health service
Hundreds of doctors are planning to sue the NHS over claims inadequate PPE on the frontline has left them with long COVID, disabled, and in financial ruin.
Dr Kelly Fearnley, 37, was working on a COVID ward at Bradford Royal Infirmary in November 2020 when she caught coronavirus.
More than three years later, the effects of long COVID mean she is still unable to work. After episodes of violent shakes, hallucinations, and a resting heart rate more than double the average, she was diagnosed with limbic encephalitis – inflammation of parts of the brain.
Swelling on Dr Fearnley’s eyelid after contracting COVID. Pic: Kelly Fearnley
Meanwhile, Dr Nathalie MacDermott – an infectious diseases registrar who treated people with the Ebola virus – says COVID has left her with spinal damage after her concerns about a lack of PPE during the pandemic were ignored.
A British Medical Association study of 600 doctors with long COVID last year revealed that 60% had suffered persistent ill health since contracting COVID, and around half (48%) had lost earnings.
Dr Fearnley co-founded Long COVID Doctors for Action (LCD4A), which is today pledging legal action against the NHS for negligent workplace exposure to coronavirus, resulting in injury and financial loss.
The group, which is being represented by the legal firm Bond Turner, claims the NHS decided to downgrade guidance as the virus took hold in March 2020, only requiring staff to wear blue surgical face masks, plastic aprons, and gloves when dealing with suspected or confirmed COVID cases.
This is in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance, which says there is only strong evidence for more restrictive masks such as FFP3s, FFP2s, and N95s, being worn for “aerosol-generating procedures” – not general care of COVID patients.
But both the US and European public health authorities advise at least FFP3 or N95 masks for any healthcare worker in a COVID environment, with scientists leaning on both sides.
Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at Reading University, told Sky News there is a “greater than 50% chance” healthcare workers who were infected in early 2020 contracted the virus at work, as lockdown meant other contact was significantly reduced – but there are no guarantees.
He added: “Some masks seem to be more effective than others and can vary quite a lot.
“We have to remember that there was a shortage nationally of PPE. So the supplies of better, more effective masks might have been somewhat restricted.”
The public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic has heard PPE provision for healthcare workers was “hopelessly inadequate”. Government and public health officials have admitted “mistakes were made”.
Dr Fearnley’s painful skin rashes after contracting COVID. Pic: Kelly Fearnley
Read more:
One in five doctors with long COVID forced to reduce hours
NHS face legal action over schoolgirl’s long COVID treatment
How long COVID ruined my life
Dr Fearnley, who is currently on 12 months’ unpaid leave, having not worked since the end of 2020, says she used higher-grade masks from when she started work as a junior doctor in the spring until she was deployed to a COVID ward in November.
She said: “I walked onto the COVID ward and there was just a small box with blue masks.
“I asked where the other masks were and was told ‘we’re using these now, don’t worry they’ll protect you’.
“The sudden downgrading of PPE was not based on the known science.
“I didn’t have time to think about it. But I spent 12 hours a day, for five consecutive days, surrounded by COVID-positive patients in the absence of adequate respiratory protection.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Dr Fearnley films her breathing and heart rate difficulties
‘My brain is still infected’
Dr Fearnley says she tested positive for COVID after one week on the ward. For four weeks she had flu-like symptoms and suffered breathlessness, as well as a swelling around her eye and a red rash across her body.
She tried to return to work after three weeks but only lasted two hours before dizziness and breathlessness forced her to go back home.
“It was like a switch flipped in my body,” she said.
Her long COVID symptoms over the next two years left her largely bedbound and, at times, suicidal.
“I started to turn more of a corner after two-and-a-half years. Now I can get dressed and move around the house. I can exert myself cognitively and physically a little bit more.
“But I still deal with symptoms daily, my brain still feels infected and there’s an ongoing pathological process in my body I believe needs treatment before I can recover. I feel like I have sustained a traumatic brain injury.
“At 37 I’m living and relying on my 70-year-old father for support. If it wasn’t for him I’d be homeless.”
Dr Fearnley struggled with pins and needles in her arms and legs. Pic: Kelly Fearnley
Call for other doctors to join legal action
LCD4A is calling for other doctors and healthcare workers who worked in England and Wales and suffered similar circumstances to join its group legal action. Those in Scotland can do so via a different legal firm, Jackson Boyd.
Hundreds have signed up, many say they have lost their jobs, and had relationships end. Several of those still employed by the NHS claim they have reached maximum sick pay or are struggling to claim benefits.
One consultant, who asked to remain anonymous, but whose income protection and life insurance were denied, said: “I was once at the peak of my career and have had to give up all my dreams and become a shell of my former self.
“There is no hope at present and at times I wish I died during COVID.”
One junior doctor said her long COVID complications mean she feels unable to ever have children – or become a consultant.
The 33-year-old described how brain fog and mobility problems cause her to burn herself on hot cups of tea, having failed to “work out how to hold them safely”.
GP members have reported losing their practices and years on from their original infection one still described going to the toilet as feeling “like climbing Mount Everest”.
Ebola expert warned London hospital about masks
Dr MacDermott is another LCD4A member who moved from her job as a clinical lecturer in paediatric infectious diseases at King’s College London to work on the COVID frontline in March 2020.
The 41-year-old was moved to Great Ormond Street Hospital and worked as a paediatric registrar.
She caught COVID at the end of March and was off work with classic symptoms for 10 days. When she returned in early April, she says she was moved to a different ward, which was largely caring for children with multi-system inflammatory syndrome – a potentially fatal response to COVID seen in children that causes inflammation of various organs.
Dr Nathalie MacDermott now uses a mobility scooter. Pic: Dr Nathalie MacDermott
Having worked on Ebola and cholera in Africa and Asia, with her background in infectious diseases, she was alarmed by the lack of PPE – and raised it with senior managers.
“I spoke to the head of infection control and said it was unacceptable. I said we should at least have FFP masks but I was told we didn’t need them.”
She claims when she told her staff to wear higher-grade PPE, people would “come to the wards and tell them off for wearing PPE they shouldn’t be wearing”.
Dr MacDermott believes that those responsible for infection control policy across NHS England are to blame for what she, Dr Fearnley, and hundreds of others have suffered as a result of long COVID.
“At the end of the day, people made decisions and those decisions had consequences, and those people are not taking responsibility for those decisions.
“When I worked on Ebola in Liberia, I told healthcare workers that I would never ask them to go into an environment wearing PPE that I wouldn’t go into wearing that PPE myself.
“The NHS sold out their staff during the pandemic. And I’m not going to stay quiet about it because we haven’t learned and we’re still doing it.
“If we had another pandemic tomorrow, we would make exactly the same mistakes again.”
COVID caused spinal cord damage
Dr MacDermott says she caught COVID again and developed severe pain in her neck, back, arms, and soles of her feet.
She continued to be off work and by September 2020 her legs had become “jerky” and her “mobility took a turn for the worse”.
Long COVID has also affected her bladder and bowels, and she now uses a mobility scooter as she is unable to walk without crutches for more than around 100m (330ft).
“The overall conclusion is that I have something called a COVID-related myelopathy, which means COVID has damaged my spine, but we don’t know exactly what that damage is and how it’s done it.”
Dr MacDermott returned to work after almost two years in March 2022. She has had COVID twice since, which she says has set back her neurological symptoms each time.
Her research funding comes to an end in six months and she has so far been unsuccessful in getting further grants. Her health means she can’t do a full-time clinical role.
“So even though I’ve finally got to the end of my training, having graduated from medical school in 2006, I now can’t be the paediatric infectious diseases consultant I wanted to be.”
Both she and Dr Fearnley say they do not feel safe returning to work in the NHS with its current infection control policy, which is still the same.
Dr Fearnley added: “Coronavirus is unequivocally airborne and warrants respiratory protection.
“Our employers have a legal duty of care. Workers have a right to be protected at work and patients have a right to be cared for in safe environments. Hospitals are failing in their duty of care.”
Legal challenge of proving negligence
Legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg says all claimants face a considerable legal challenge in proving the NHS was negligent at that time.
“They have to show that their employers, the hospitals they were working in, didn’t meet what were then-accepted standards of care.
“Presumably when people didn’t really understand COVID, didn’t know about long COVID, perhaps didn’t know what level of protection was necessary for professionals working in the health service.”
He added that the doctors need to clarify which NHS or government bodies they are going to sue.
“They’ve got to decide who was actually responsible and whether they were negligent or not.”
Sara Stanger, director and head of clinical negligence and serious injury claims at Bond Turner, said: “As the nation stood at their doors clapping, our frontline NHS workers risked their lives while caring for patients, without proper protection.
“Thousands contracted the virus themselves, and many have since developed long COVID.
“We are committed to seeking justice for those who were exposed to an unnecessary risk of infection while working on the front line.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told Sky News: “Throughout the pandemic the government acted to save lives and livelihoods, prevent the NHS being overwhelmed and deliver a world-leading vaccine rollout which protected millions of lives across the nation.
“We have always said there are lessons to be learnt from the pandemic and we are committed to learning from the COVID-19 inquiry’s findings, which will play a key role in informing the government’s planning and preparations for the future. We will consider all recommendations made to the department in full.”
Sky News has contacted NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency for further comment.
It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.
The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.
Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.
A firebomb attack in Scotland
Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames
Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.
The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.
The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.
A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.
Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.
Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group
What’s caused the gang war?
The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.
Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.
The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Pic: Crown Office
‘Old scores to settle’
But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?
It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.
It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.
It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.
Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.
“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”
Read more from Sky News:
Scientists find strongest evidence yet of aliens
Widow has ‘no regrets’ over helping husband’s suicide
Graeme Pearson
Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.
He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”
New wave of violence ‘barbaric’
Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.
He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.
Mark Dempster
“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.
Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.
“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.
“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”
Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.
It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.
But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.
UK
Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests
Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.
Politics latest: Follow live updates
Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.
This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.
Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.
The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.
Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.
She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.
“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.
“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.
‘Something has to be done’
MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.
They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.
However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.
“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.
Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.
“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
Read more from Sky News:
Four killed as cable car crashes to ground near Naples
Two dead and five injured in shooting at Florida university
The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.
She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.
“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”
Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway