Long Covid patients denied disability benefits face daily struggle

Many people with Long Covid are unable to work fully but are denied benefits by Switzerland’s disability insurance, leaving them to struggle to make ends meet, SRF reported.

Fabien still suffers severe symptoms years after contracting Covid. “You wake up tired, you are constantly tired,” he told French-language broadcaster RTS. He can manage a few hours of activity each day, including shopping and walking, but has no energy left in the evening.

Fabien can work for no more than two or three hours a day, according to a report by Geneva’s university hospitals. The disability insurance authority, however, concluded that he was 80 to 100 percent fit to work in his profession.

Long Covid has also radically changed Dorothée’s life. As a trained mountain guide, she was accustomed to high altitudes. She can now tolerate reaching about 2,300 metres, but no higher. She continues to spend time outdoors, although she goes less high, less far and for shorter periods.

She can work only 40 percent as a librarian. “I work half-days and absolutely need an afternoon nap,” she said. “Fatigue is not the right word. You would have to invent another word. You are completely knocked out.”

The disability insurance authority also rejected Dorothée’s application for a pension. Although it recognised her diagnoses, it concluded that she was fully fit to work. She said medical reports had stated that she could not work more than 40 percent.

Fabien and Dorothée are among the people who have paid into disability insurance but receive no benefits even though illness prevents them from working. The Federal Social Insurance Office said that a diagnosis alone was not sufficient. Disability insurance offices rely on medical assessment centres that review the entire case file, including the potential for rehabilitation. A pension is considered only after all measures to reintegrate a person into working life have been exhausted.

The priority is to help sick people return to work rather than simply pay them a pension. This assumes at least partial recovery from Long Covid. Christian von Plessen, who leads the Long Covid clinic at Unisanté, a university hospital in Lausanne, said about four in five patients recover within two years. For others, recovery takes several years, while a small proportion do not improve and may even deteriorate after two years.

Six years after her infection, Dorothée has still not recovered. To live without disability insurance support, she plans to set up an association through which relatives and acquaintances can make monthly donations. The money would supplement her wages and help her make ends meet.