Plaid Cymru calls for specialist long COVID clinics to treat both children and adults in Wales

Adam Price MS, Leader of Plaid Cymru has renewed calls for specialist long COVID clinics to be set up for children and adults in Wales.

The lack of clinics is forcing many people to pay for private medical care, which, says Mr Price “would be wrong in any case” but is especially damning given the prevalence of long COVID among people living in more deprived areas.

A recent study by the ONS has found more cases of long COVID in people aged 35 to 69 years, females, people living in more deprived areas, those working in health care, social care, or teaching and education and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.

The point was raised during Questions to the First Minister today (Tuesday 25 January 2022), to which Mark Drakeford said he was “not convinced” that specialist centres are the right answer for Wales.

Mr Price noted that estimates from around the world suggest that between 10 – 20 per cent of children who contract COVID-19 develop paediatric long COVID, and countered that, if the Welsh Government was not prepared to set up specialist centres for adults, it should at least consider them for children who “deserve nothing less” after the impact of the pandemic on this generation.

Leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price MS said,

“60,000 of our people are living with long COVID and not one specialist clinic is available for them in Wales, forcing many to go private. That would be wrong in any case but it’s especially wrong when ONS figures show that long COVID is twice as prevalent among people living in deprived areas.

“This is why Welsh Government must rethink its approach and set up the specialist clinics that patients and medical experts internationally are calling for.

“What’s more, we know that international estimates suggest that between 10 and 20 per cent of children who contract COVID-19 develop paediatric long COVID. If the Welsh Government is not prepared to set up specialist clinics for adults it should at least be prepared to do so for children whose entire lives risk being scarred if they do not get fastest possible diagnosis and the best medical advice and treatment based on the latest knowledge. Surely after what this generation of young people have gone through they deserve nothing less?”