Mental health support for long Covid victims
Damon bares musical soul
ASERVICE to offer long-covid mental health and psychological support service will be available to people in Rochdale.
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust has received £ 593,000 in funding from Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership to establish a new long covid mental health and psychological support service.
The new service, expected to launch in autumn, will be based at Pennine Care’s existing Psychological Medicine Service in Oldham and will co- ordinate the care and support for people with mental health and psychological difficulties caused by Covid-19 in Rochdale, Oldham, Bury, Stockport and Tameside and Glossop.
Anna Dalton, long term conditions strategic and operational lead at Pennine Care, said: “Our innovative Psychological Medicine Service in Oldham already supports people with complex physical health problems and long-term health conditions who may also have mental and emotional difficulties. Since autumn last year, we have helped more than 50 people in the borough who have had on-going psychological difficulties and complications due to Covid19.
“This new dedicated service means we can help people across all our five boroughs in Greater Manchester receive the mental health help and support they need.”
Recent research from The Lancet shows that an estimated 34 per cent of people diagnosed with Covid- 19, go on to have a neurological or psychiatric diagnosis within the following six months.
Pennine Care’s Dr Sarah Burlinson, consultant liaison psychiatrist, explains how Covid- 19 can affect people.
She said: “For a significant number of people the impact of Covid-19 can be long lasting; especially if they have developed new physical health problems as a result.
“Some people may have been ventilated and remained in hospital for long periods.
“Some will have experienced delirium during their acute illness; whilst others speak about the loss of family members who have caught Covid19 at the same time as them and have not survived.
“These experiences are upsetting and potentially traumatising; in some cases the experience may trigger other mental health difficulties including anxiety and mood disorders, post- traumatic stress disorder and cognitive difficulties.”
Dr Burlinson adds: “People - those who have been in hospital and those who have had less severe infections - describe a range of other symptoms which include fatigue, brain fog and a range of physical symptoms, which are not currently fully understood at the moment.
“Recovery from Covid19, especially given all the uncertainty, can be difficult, and providing a biopsychosocial approach to assessment, recovery and rehabilitation with our health and social care colleagues will be key.”
The new service is expected to launch autumn 2021 and Pennine Care is currently recruiting for a mental health practitioner, CBT therapist, highly specialist clinical psychologist, programme manager, advanced nurse practitioner and consultant neuropsychologist to join the team. »
DAMON Albarn opened his second night at this year’s Manchester International Festival with “I didn’t know if we would be able to communicate our music to people after 18 months of playing to a closed circle.”
It soon became clear that he and his wonderful band certainly could!
We witnessed something truly special over the next couple of hours.
Shapeshifting being the outcome of Damon Albarn’s restless creative impatience since his cheeky chappie BLUR days, he has created a set that reveals song after song of introverted beauty.
Songs that are the outcomes of his soul searching during his journey through the pandemic.
Songs that slowly build layer by layer to exhilarating climaxes. Soundscapes emotively enhanced by a string quartet and underpinned by Femi Koleso’s drums, picking up the mantle of his mentor, the genius that was the late a muchlamented Tony Allen.
Songs on Damon’s upcoming album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, were at the core of his set.
Songs that were inspired by sitting out the pandemic in Iceland with its stark landscape and in Devon, on a beach looking at a ghost cruise ship sat, in useless isolation, waiting for normality to return.
Damon’s creativity was ignited as he imagined a band playing on the ship, creating a soundtrack for them.
The songs are songs of the soul, existing in a wonderland of fragile melodies, sung by Damon with previously unmined vocal nuances explored and developed over the last 18 months.
At times Damon introspectively hunches over his keyboard, then strides from side to side of the stage randomly throwing some remarkable shapes.
In between these hauntingly beautiful songs he regales us with asides and anecdotes covering a vividly entertaining, eclectic array of topics and characters.
His schooldays, the Two Tone Movement in the 80’s, the resemblance of the venue to the Blackpool Pier Theatre. Alan Carr,
Michael Gove, Elton John and Cliff Richard.
Damon even indulges in a bout of audience participation, taking us through the chanting of Chakras up to his newly invented one – the note of E.
Chosen so that we can help him with his next song which starts with an E - he claims to have difficulty with hitting it.
The new studio album will be released November 12, 2021. » »
Along with the Arlo Parks gig, the MIF have reaffirmed the efficacy of sharing creativity in sustaining wellbeing, promoting resilience and enabling an outpouring of collective joy.