Nearly 10,000 Long Covid patients in the Netherlands have been declared completely or partially incapable of work. At the end of August, the benefits agency UWV paid out occupational disability (WIA) benefits to 9,746 people due to Long Covid, also known as post-Covid syndrome, Volkskrant reports.
Another 1,246 people received WIA benefits with Long Covid as a secondary diagnosis, meaning they are unable to work due to symptoms of the syndrome as well as another illness. WIA benefits are provided to employees who are unable to work or have difficulty working due to illness for two years or more.
Insurance doctor and lawyer Jim Faas calculated for the newspaper that WIA benefits for Long Covid patients cost the treasury at least 200 million euros a year. The costs are structural. There is no cure for Long Covid yet.
On Friday, the Netherlands' first three long Covid outpatient clinics will open in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Maastricht. There, doctors can help nearly 1,000 patients find ways to manage their symptoms with existing medications. Other university hospitals in the Netherlands should also open outpatient clinics for long Covid in a few months.
The disability benefit figures show how big and how invisible the Long Covid problem is, Alphonse Old Loohuis, a former GP at C-Support, the organization which supports patients with long-term symptoms after coronavirus infection, told the newspaper. “I know young people who have been bedridden for four years. They don't feel heard or seen. He has an elusive disease for which doctors have no solution yet.”
Old Loohuis said approximately 32,000 patients are currently registered with C-Support and more than 300 new patients are registered every month. The most dramatic cases are from the first wave of coronavirus infections, before vaccination, he said. But often people are getting long Covid even after mild infection.