Nearly 10,000 Long Covid patients in Netherlands unable to work

Nearly 10,000 Long Covid patients in the Netherlands have been declared fully or partially incapacitated for work. At the end of August, benefits agency UWV paid out occupational disability (WIA) benefits to 9,746 people due to Long Covid, also called post-Covid syndrome, the Volksrkant reports.

Another 1,246 people received WIA benefits with Long Covid as the secondary diagnosis, meaning that they are unable to work due to symptoms from the syndrome, combined with another illness. WIA benefits are provided to employees who have been unable or barely able to work due to illness for two years or longer.

The WIA benefits for Long Covid patients cost the treasury at least 200 million euros per year, insurance physician and lawyer Jim Faas calculated for the newspaper. The costs are structural. Long Covid doesn’t have a cure yet.

On Friday, the Netherlands’ first three Long Covid outpatient clinics will open in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Maastricht. There, doctors can help around 1,000 patients find ways to manage their symptoms with existing medicines. The 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, former GP Alfons Olde Loohuis of C-support, the organization that supports patients with long-term symptoms after a coronavirus infection, told the newspaper. “I know young people who have been in bed for four years. They do not feel heard and not seen. They have an elusive disease for which doctors do not yet have a solution.”

Around 32,000 patients are currently registered with C-support and over 300 new patients register every month, Olde Loohuis said. The most dramatic cases date from the first wave of coronavirus infections, before vaccinations, he said. But people are still getting Long Covid, often after a mild infection.