UK: Observer/Guardian article: "GPs stricken by long Covid ‘shocked and betrayed’ at being forced from jobs"

"Family doctors are being forced out of their jobs after developing long Covid, prompting demands for the government to compensate NHS staff with the debilitating condition who cannot work.

GPs struggling with the condition have told the Observer they felt “shocked and betrayed” when their colleagues removed them from their posts because of prolonged sick leave.

“I received a lawyer’s letter on behalf of the other partners in the GP surgery telling me that they were ending my partnership. I understood why they did what they did, because I was too sick to work at the time. But it was also callous and mercenary,” said one doctor who lost her job.

“It was hard on me, as one of the partners was also my best friend. The partners were worried I’d be a ‘disabled partner’ and wouldn’t be able to pull my weight. Long Covid meant I simply couldn’t function normally and so couldn’t meet the return to work date they gave me, so they exercised their right under our partnership agreement to end my partnership at the surgery,” added the GP, who asked to remain anonymous."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...hocked-and-betrayed-at-being-forced-from-jobs


In my opinion, if there's anything that might actually force a change in attitude towards how people with long-term post-infectious conditions are treated by society, it might be this sort of thing.

 

In the 16 yrs i worked before i developed ME & then during the 18mnths i was "mild" & 'pushing through/in denial about it, i never worked anywhere where they paid sick pay, which was definitely the reason i forced myself to continue. I imagine had i had that privilege i may have rested & not become severe.

I've only ever known one person who got sick pay from their employer, worked for local government i think, everyone had to rely on the statutory sick pay from the government, which was £54 at the time - same as the dole.

I think a change in attitude will only happen in those gps to whom it has happenedm who then recver & go back to work - they'll have a different perspective on things. But I think generally speaking people read such articles, shake their heads & tut, then get up to make a cuppa and forget about it, i dont think it will change anything overall, sadly. But if you say if anything would... then maybe

 

Not a single doctor cared or helped me when I lost my job.

In fact, many hastened the process by advising my employer that I could fully recover after six months of GET and CBT.

 

That's so sad to hear, but I don't doubt it for a second. When was this?

That's a good example of the direct damage that the faulty BPS-model and the fraudulent trials that have "validated" it has done to patients.

 

About ten years ago. Unfortunately I was so sick and brain-fogged at the time that I could not figure out any way to counter their claims. Ironically I'm much better informed these days when it comes to these issues because I've had more time to read about them.

 

I frankly don't know what they expected, this is what they do to us. I guess they thought they had a special status that protected them. But when a physician gets sick they're not physicians anymore, they're patients and medicine doesn't listen to patients. Not dying? Not interested.

Frankly it's the shock that is shocking, how clueless they can be about what they routinely do to us, ignorant of everything that happens when we leave their office. Out of sight, out of mind. Doctors don't bring their work home. Chronically ill people bear their illness all the time, but they never see that, they even look away. Harder to do when it's your own image in a mirror.

I'm not sure I have much sympathy, shock is clearly the only way to wake this horrible system out of its state of decay. It should not have to be this way, but medicine made it so, explicitly. Can we change this now? It clearly doesn't work and is excessively cruel.

 

Well, if they were regular NHS employees they might be sent to consult with a Dr. Wessely, who would assure them that their extended disability is an unfortunate consequence of their malingering maladaptive thoughts.

 

Before CFS, doctors and medical staff were seen as being liable to get ME, (along with mothers and teachers) as they were often in contact with infectious diseases and found it hard to take enough time to recover when ill. Charles Shepherd and Vance Spence one of the founders of MEReasearch UK spring to mind.

It made no difference to the way ME was treated - though attitudes were a lot better before the BPS people pulled CFS to the Dark Side.

I think that doctors were often seen as weak and giving in by their colleagues. Plus it is not good to think you are in a high risk group with no way to avoid getting ill so it is more comforting to think that people who do are giving in to illness where you never would.

 

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/gp-funding-and-contracts-explained

"Partners pay themselves from the money that remains after other expenditure has been accounted for. Part of this personal income is used to pay their pension contributions, tax, indemnity, General Medical Council and other subscriptions. Partners may also decide to reinvest some of the remaining income into the practice. It is important to note that partners in GP practices are also personally liable for any losses made by the practice."

 

Very well put. I think you're at the core of the issue here. When I was healthy and studying social psychology I came across two theoretical concepts that I think are relevant when it comes to explaining how doctors treat ME-patients:

1) The Just World Hypothesis - the belief that people get what they deserve, and that if you work hard enough you will succeed eventually (e.g. in getting healthy from ME)
2) Victim blaming - thinking that people are at fault for their own misfortune, because it gives reassurance when the troubling thought of "what if it happened to me?" comes into their thought stream

 

I have to admit that when I saw this article today I thought of the GPs who have straight up told me that ME is not a real illness, and of the one older GP who simply laughed at me. It is surreal to see this news; I wonder if those affected knew this could happen to them. Misinformation has created a climate where it is very difficult to get practitioners to acknowledge the seriousness of post-viral illness. Unfortunately I feel numb. I hope people see this and start to take it seriously.

Being able to work is so far away from many of us with ME/CFS (and long covid; I now have that as well and am housebound due to that). It's so distant to think about an expectation of being able to work, and so strange that this is seen as a surprising consequence of post-viral illness when it has been happening to so many of us for so long. I would love to be able to take care of myself in the house, never mind going out or working.

I know that doctors with long covid are potentially politically very influential. I wish I had heard more from them about the reality of chronic illness, disability, and so on - anything that has been learned. Suggestions for change. I am disappointed that the narratives so far have been about things like this, with the relevant issues not really being highlighted by anyone. I hope this group of people can help to effect change for the wider community of people with long covid & ME/CFS. I am not really sensing an effort to help others. Whatever has happened is presented as inevitable and no context is given about how this situation arose or what needs to be done. Very much the passive voice.

I know it hasn't been long and I am still hoping for the best. I have been quite disappointed so far. I know this may not be the "right" response about this. Does anyone have more hopeful considerations?

 

I agree with all here.

My other half who is very good at quickly cutting to the core of issues said, "Welcome to the world of ME."

As @rvallee says, why would these doctors be surprised? It's quite possibly, if not always what they do to their patients with ME, long COVID, etc. The survival of the fittest.

And yes, @Mithriel I agree. I do think there is a vein of thought amongst some physicians that they can rise above it all. They see themselves as invincible.

And, @Campanula I also agree, the "you get what you deserve" theory is deeply embedded in our collective unconscious.

And, I do agree
@JemPD the only attitudes that will change are those of these abandoned GPs.

Sick pay is a huge issue on the news in Canada. The prevailing attitude of course is that one is a malingerer if one takes time off. Even if sick pay is provided.

COVID has brought this out of the dark into a very bright light. People in processing plants, jammed together, forced to work, even with COVID. Thus spreading it to many others. These same people not allowed any sick pay at all. Ever.

Back several years before ME, I was sick for a week. I was a new employee in a large institution. I couldn't work that week. I didn't have sick pay. I couldn't drag myself into work. I was bedridden. Standing up made me feel faint and dizzy. I was weak, and had no appetite. Despite letting a colleague know how I was doing, people at work questioned my integrity. Was I really sick? Looking back, I don't see that I gave them any reason to doubt my truthfulness. I had a good work record. Nonetheless they thought I was playing hooky. People seem to instinctively jump to that conclusion.

 

@Ariel that is awful you have long COVID on top of ME! I hope you improve soon.

I think your ideas are exactly right. These doctors could speak out to educate those in various arenas about post-viral illness. Our community very clearly knows what long standing ramifications viral illnesses can have. Many viruses have for too long been seen as inconsequential.

A long time ago I was told a virus may have caused my hypothyroidism; a more or less manageable, although lifetime disease. Serious if left untreated. Not inconsequential. And yet many viruses are shrugged off as a mere nothing.

 

I think this applies to more than just ME patients, I think it applies to dozens of medical conditions. For example, how many doctors and family members, on learning that patient X has cancer, start seeking reasons that blames patient X for what has happened? In other words the first reaction of many is to think one or more of the following :

"Of course, X smoked cigarettes/smoked dope/drank a lot of alcohol/took illegal pills of some kind"
"Of course, X ate a lot of meat/was carnivore/vegetarian/vegan/"
"Of course, X was probably diabetic or pre-diabetic"
"Of course, X was anorexic/fat/ate poorly/ate too much junk food/ate too much processed food"
"Of course, X did no exercise/was lazy"

and every one of those "reasons" can be used to explain what happened to patient X and comfort the person who doesn't have cancer that X brought it on themselves and of course, it wouldn't affect them because they are different. Or if the person without cancer has "reasons" why they are like patient X they might do something to change their behaviour, temporarily or permanently, to reduce their risk, while all the time fearing that they might have left it too late.

One of my own personal "favourites" in this vein for a condition I suffered from myself - endometriosis :

This article was published in the Guardian in 2017 :

'Do mad people get endometriosis or does endo make you mad?'

and it was based on this Research Article :

“Do mad people get endo or does endo make you mad?”: Clinicians’ discursive constructions of Medicine and women with endometriosis

Given my own complicated and poorly treated medical history combined with diabolical medical record keeping, the first reaction I meet with from doctors to any invisible condition I might present to them is to cast aspersions on my honesty, my morality, or my sanity, or some combination of those three things.

To take a simple, very common example ... I suffered from eczema (which, admittedly, wasn't invisible), mostly on my hands and wrists, extremely badly from the age of about 9 or 10. I met my husband at university, and in those early years of him knowing me he couldn't bring himself to hold my hand while strolling around in public because my hands felt so rough and were so often cracked and bleeding. I seemed to grow out of such severe eczema in my mid 20s, although it never disappeared entirely. It got worse again in my 30s, and pretty much stayed the same from then on as a fairly mild condition mostly affecting my hands, with only occasional flare ups.

I lost count of the times that I was told my eczema was probably a result of stress, and was asked if I was anxious or depressed, and I needed to get more exercise, get more sleep, lose weight, and should learn to relax.

In the end I managed to (mostly) fix my own eczema in my 50s purely by accident - I needed more vitamin B12 and/or folate, although I was never deficient. If I let my B12 or folate levels drop my eczema makes an appearance in a flare up.

I think a major part of the problem for patients of all kinds is that this patient-blaming behaviour is probably instinctive in most people, although I think doctors should have been trained to overcome those instincts.

...

About 20 years ago my husband and I got a puppy. I did quite a lot of reading on dog behaviour in her youth to try and understand why she did some of the things she did. When she was only about three months old she got severely tangled up in some wire (thankfully not barbed wire) and somehow managed to end up hanging upside down trapped by her own feet. She started screaming - a noise I never want to hear again. I ran over to help her and get her untangled from the wire, and she responded by frantically biting me. I discovered later on that in the wild a dog pack with a screaming member will rush to attack and kill the distressed animal because it could encourage predators in the area to come looking for the pack. My puppy was defending herself from me because her instincts told her I was going to kill her. I have noticed some similarities between dog pack behaviour and the behaviour of humans to their own sick and injured.

 

@Arnie Pye

I think you are right on with the instinctual response humans and others, perhaps all animals have to weakness and disease.

I read in a completely different topic, never to reveal weakness, or even your advocate will "go in for the kill" so to speak.

As a species, I sincerely question if we have come very far at all. Colleagues, friends, and even dear relatives may turn on one who steps out of line. Even one who is terribly ill.

 

We're all 9 full meals away from anarchy. Based on that alone, we definitely have not gotten very far. It's too easy to think of early humans as primitive and dumb, when in fact they were just as human as we are. We can revert back to barbarism very easily, in fact we pretty much on a regular basis, and how medicine treats chronic illness fully qualifies as barbaric.

 

Some don't receive much compassion from their own families, and are raised and expected to tough it out.

 

Agreed.

Exactly the same as some pwME receive from their families. IMO there is a substantial element of this "one must tough it out" in society in general.

 

Fairness, where no one gets more than their share, seems to be written into primate DNA. Because we also have a sense of compassion people who are seen as being unable to contribute are still allowed a share from the communal pot.

However, we are depicted as being able to do things if we wanted to do them and as being much less sick than our actual experience so we are instinctively rejected by society.