‘COVID-19 is frightening – patients may need therapy after their trauma’

NHS A&E doctor Dr Frankie Jackson-Spence says, “The longlasting damages from severely suffering with coronavirus, as Derek has, are still unclear. We’re seeing some evidence that there can be lasting scarring on the lungs if they become very inflamed. This would mean a patient may have trouble breathing in the future, or may become susceptible to other lung illnesses, and may struggle to exercise or move as well as they did before.

“I think some of the most severe long-lasting effects, though, will be the mental impact. We’ve seen that patients who spend time in ICU often suffer posttraumatic stress disorder – it can be a really frightening time and these patients may need therapy to help come to terms with what happened afterwards. But equally, I’ve seen patients who’ve been in ICU make a full recovery and be absolutely fine.

“What’s been so difficult with treating COVID-19 is that, firstly, we know barely anything about it, and secondly, there seems to be a vast array of symptoms. In the beginning, we’d assume patients with a cough and fever had COVID-19 [Kate has previously said that Derek did not have the cough] because they seemed to be the most obvious symptoms. But each week we’d learn more – it became clear that anosmia (no sense of smell or taste), headaches, collapsing and even gastro-intestinal issues were symptoms too. Some elderly people have come in with no symptoms, just because they’ve collapsed and had a fall – but they’ll test positive for COVID.

It’s all uncharted territory.”