'Long Covid sufferers have been abandoned and forgotten about'

When Darren Parkinson contracted Covid in 2021 it was just "like a bad flu", he says; a few days in bed and then he was back on his feet. But five years later, his fatigue is so all-encompassing that he is unable to work, socialise or even shower more than once a week.

"It's had a devastating effect on my life. Everything's changed since I got ill. I was a very active, outgoing person, I had a job."

Before he developed long Covid, Parkinson, from Bradford, was a learning disability nurse working in the NHS and a local councillor.

Now he has given all that up. He cannot play with his two children, see them perform in school plays or compete at sports days.

"I never ever feel well, I constantly feel like my body's been poisoned by the disease, it's like gravity working overtime just pushing me down constantly, that draining never-ending fatigue.

"Doing day-to-day things is just incredibly exhausting and the basics of everyday living are really impossible - getting dressed I have to do really slowly. I can only shower about once a week because showering is ridiculously exhausting," he says.

Cooking one meal can take three days and the last time he left the house was for a dental appointment last year.

"It's completely devastated my life to the point where now I spend most of my time lying on my bed or lying on my sofa resting, the fatigue is just so overwhelming, it's a constant 24/7 thing," he says.

"It can take me for example like three days to prepare a meal. I might chop something one day, chop something else the next day and then I might cook it all together the following day. So it has a massive effect on every aspect of my life."

According to the NHS, long Covid happens when the symptoms of Covid-19 last longer than 12 weeks.

Symptoms include feeling extremely tired, shortness of breath, joint pain and aching muscles, and problems with your memory and concentration.

There is currently no cure and the condition is still being researched, the NHS says. It recommends sleep, gentle exercise and painkillers.

Five years since he first developed symptoms, Parkinson is keen to get back out in to world.

"I miss such a huge amount of things, I miss going hanging out with my mates and playing gigs.

"I really miss being active and trying to make a difference and I miss going out and having fun with the kids and going on long bike rides or walking up a hill or anything active. I miss all of that."

He would love to get back to work, he says, and often encounters misunderstanding about the condition.

"A lot of people think it's made up or you're lazy or you need to get on with things and do things but it just doesn't work like that at all.

"Anything you try to do your body is fighting against itself. You try to do things but your body just won't let you and you end up in bed and crashing for days on end."

Parkinson attends a long Covid clinic in Bradford where he has received advice about how to manage his symptoms but he is frustrated that there is no cure.

"I have massive deterioration and then a tiny bit of improvement. I'm not really getting any better," he says.

"They can't give me some tablets or send me for an operation or whatever that might make it better. They haven't got the tools to be able to do that.

"What they've offered has been helpful but I'm still here five years on and I'm still struggling."

He believes the government should provide more funding for research into long Covid.

"We're six years after the pandemic started and there's still not the investment in the research to fund the treatments we need and that's one thing that has to absolutely change.

"Of course people are still getting ill. Covid is still here, it's not completely disappeared," he says.

"We just forgot this massive national crisis happened and then you've got millions of people who've been left with this dreadful disease completely forgotten about and it's staggering to me that this is a situation we're in.

"We've been completely abandoned and forgotten about and that needs to change."

A government spokesperson said it funded research on health and social care through the National Institute for Health and Care Research and had awarded grants for a clinical trial to test multiple interventions for the treatment of long Covid.

A spokesperson said: "We recognise the very real impact long Covid continues to have on people like Darren and on other families.

"Long Covid services, commissioned by local NHS organisations, should be offered to support people, and we are funding research into this condition to improve diagnosis, support and unlock new treatments."

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