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The Long Covid Aragón collective requests that a clinical guide be approved to facilitate its diagnosis // In other places in Spain there are already protocols and units in which these patients are treated
It was on February 23 when the group of persistent covid patients in Aragon met for the first time with those responsible for the DGA Health Department. Since then, contacts between the parties have remained discreet, and although this group understands the overload of work that the department suffers in times of pandemic, they ask for more speed to be able to approve a clinical guide that allows them to be diagnosed and establish protocols to treat this disease. The next official meeting will be at the end of April.
In Aragon, the matter is in the hands of the Health Care management and the DGA assures that "several meetings have been held to define the concept of what a long covid patient is." "We are waiting for the pronouncement of the scientific societies," say sources from the Ministry of Health of the Government of Aragon. Meanwhile, in Catalonia, after six months of fluid conversations, the group has already managed to create a clinical guide for care of these people. In addition, the Germans Trías hospital (Can Ruti) launched a multidisciplinary unit to care for patients with this syndrome.
"We are the pandemic within the pandemic," lament the Long Covid Aragón collective, of which 235 people are already part, although, according to estimates by the World Health Organization, up to 10% of the people who have infected with covid may continue to suffer symptoms six months after contracting the disease. "There are people who have been on sick leave for a year but are not diagnosed with Covid because they were infected at the beginning of the pandemic and were not tested, so it is difficult for them to extend their sick leave without a specific diagnosis and they are forced to work while sick" , they assure from the group.
Furthermore, people who have tested positive for a PCR find it difficult to be considered sick if they did not suffer serious complications during the first phase of the disease, such as bilateral pneumonia, when the experience of many persistent covid patients is that During the first days, the coronavirus does not cause them more than a "bad flu." Pain, shortness of breath, mental fog, among other problems, appear later.
And these patients, on many occasions, have to face the disbelief of their coworkers and health professionals themselves. "It is true that more and more people believe us, because it is happening all over the world and it is unfeasible for so many people to be pretending at the same time," declare sources from the group.
From Long Covid Aragón they assure that they saw good predisposition on the part of the Minister of Health, Sira Repollés, but they ask for a little more speed to be able to resolve the situation of these people. "We are a group of young people of working age, who had a life that we cannot lead now and we want to move on," they lament. Likewise, they emphasize that in places such as Huelva, Málaga and Navarra, in addition to Catalonia, specific programs are already being launched to investigate and treat patients with persistent covid. Here they want to establish ways of collaboration with teams from other autonomous communities to "all go together."
