LCK In The News

Children with long Covid have been "dismissed and ignored" by those supposed to support them, the Scottish Covid Inquiry has heard. Long Covid Kids said the Scottish government and public health bodies had not done enough to help families and children had suffered as a result. Helen Goss said the charity represents more than 250 families in Scotland, with the number growing all the time. Getting these chronically ill children the treatment and support they needed was "an absolute battle every single day" for parents, she said. "There needs to be a lot more attention on long Covid," she added.

Helen Goss, charity COO and Long Covid Kids Scotland lead, told the inquiry she was shocked to overhear a top Scottish Government official describe parents as "extremists" if they wanted more done to limit the spread of Covid in schools.
She added: “I think it’s really important to highlight that because I think that it shows potentially what the Government were feeling at the time. That people who were campaigning for the health and wellbeing of children had ‘extreme’ views. I don’t believe that the health of children is an extreme view.”
Ms Goss also told the inquiry that "The impact on families is life-changing, devastating. It has broken up families".

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said the evidence “confirms what teachers and parents had always suspected - that Gavin Williamson prioritised point scoring over serious engagement with the representatives of hundreds of thousands of education workers about the best way of suppressing the spread of Covid-19 in schools”.

The LCK team, led by Health Lead Kirsty Stanley, were involved in the production of this leaflet by the WHO. This leaflet provides advice and support for young people aged 12 years and older who are experiencing symptoms of post COVID-19 condition, commonly known as long COVID. It aims to help you to understand and manage your condition and ask for help and support.

This paper is Long Covid Kids Scotland's written submission to the Scottish Covid-19 inquiry.
It outlines the key points that the charity leads have put to the enquiry to hear and to investigate.
"Long Covid Kids is a grass-roots organisation formed by individuals who have borne the burden of... and who have become disillusioned and frustrated by the slow, inadequate and reprehensible response by government - national and local - to the long term illness caused by Covid-19".
"Why was it [Paediatric Long Covid] not foreseen by our Scottish elected representatives and our Scottish health and education officials, exercising their responsibilities for the care, wellbeing and education of the children, and young people of Scotland?