Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 19 May 2022
It is great that this key debate on long Covid has been rescheduled. However, given the growing scale of the problem, it is many months overdue.
The cabinet secretary might be surprised to hear that Scottish Conservatives agree with him. We also recognise the negative impact that long Covid is having on so many Scots and the debilitating long-term effects that they are suffering. We also agree that the NHS and the third sector are working hard to help with long Covid. However, waiting times are so long. For example, our waiting time for gynaecology appointments in Glasgow for cancer patients is currently six to eight weeks.
I am pretty sure that people who are struggling with long Covid—some of whom are watching from the public gallery, such as Stuart, and others who are following the debate at home—will not be impressed if we just continue to reel off generalisations. They do not really want to hear platitudes such as that people who need clinical support should have the right help at the right time. Long Covid sufferers want concrete action from the Scottish Parliament, and they need it now; in fact, they needed it last year.
The Scottish National Party and Scottish Green Party Government’s inaction is having a real impact on people who have been affected by long Covid. When its paper was published in September last year, we estimated that around 79,000 people in Scotland were suffering from long Covid. Now, after eight months of dither and delay, the number has almost doubled to 151,000 people. I ask members to let that sink in.
It is not as though we did not know that long Covid was coming. In March 2020, Scotland confirmed its first case of Covid-19. From the summer of that year, it was clear that a rapidly growing number of people were not getting over their run-in with the virus. At my general practice surgery, more and more patients were presenting with what seemed to be random symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, brain fog, pain in their joints and poor mental health. Their symptoms continue to be wide ranging, including slurred speech, indescribable headaches, fluctuating heart rate, numbness and abdominal issues.
Long Covid is hitting the country hard, impacting—