COVID long-haulers in Nova Scotia face lengthy waits to get care
CBC
Erin Booth was already dealing with brain fog, extreme fatigue and trouble seeing when a new problem was added to her life in the summer of 2020: she started spontaneously collapsing.
Seeking help, the Hubley, N.S., woman went to the emergency room four times looking for answers. On her final visit, the doctor asked for her to walk in front of him. She fell to the floor.
"It was like my brain thought I could walk and my body was just not letting me do it," said Booth.
She was admitted to the neurology unit of the QEII Health Sciences Centre In Halifax for five weeks and underwent a battery of tests to figure out what was wrong. She then spent four weeks in the hospital's rehab centre and learned to walk again.
Booth, 42, is one of more than a million Canadians who continue to have COVID-19 symptoms for months following the initial infection. She has long COVID, which is a catch-all term for a range of post-infection health impacts.
Recent Statistics Canada data suggests 1.4 million adults experienced symptoms three months after a confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection.
Today, Booth can't walk great distances. Sometimes, she can't make it to the end of her driveway. Her fatigue is so great that she can't work and she struggles to multi-task. She has insomnia and is lucky to get five hours of sleep a night.
Booth and other Nova Scotians who have long COVID say they aren't getting timely support from Nova Scotia's health-care system.
The province has a website where people experiencing lingering symptoms of a COVID-19 infection can fill out a survey. Through that, Booth took part this summer in an eight-week, online group program for people suffering from chronic issues due to COVID-19.
The virtual program covers understanding symptoms of long COVID and using strategies to improve and manage them. If more support is needed afterwards, follow-up care involving health-care providers could include occupational therapy, physiotherapy and psychotherapy.
Booth's admission to the program was initially denied because she contracted COVID-19 in February 2020 before testing was available, so she had trouble proving she had been infected.
Ashley Harnish, a health services manager with Nova Scotia Health, says so far 2,600 people who experienced symptoms three months after a COVID-19 infection have filled out surveys.
Of those applications, 20 per cent were flagged to the province's post-COVID navigator for follow up. In half of those cases, it was determined the 260 people needed care through a specialized clinic in Fall River, N.S.
Harnish said it can take two to three months to hear from the post-COVID navigator, and an additional four to seven months to get into their eight-week program. She said that wait times are growing.
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