AOb opens reporting point 'long covid'
Do you work in education and are you struggling with long-term complaints after a corona infection ('long covid')? Sign up at the AOb.
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AOb and FNV Education & Research open a reporting point for people in education with lung covid complaints, such as fatigue, forgetfulness, shortness of breath, palpitations and long-term loss of the sense of smell. The hotline must first of all map out the extent of the problem of long covid in education.
"The AOb and the FNV believe that the government should set up a long-covid fund for financial compensation for people who have been infected in the workplace and who still experience long-covid complaints," says AObchairman Tamar van Gelder.
There are enough incentives in the classroom - nice incentives, but I can't have them anymore. I wonder if I will ever be able to stand properly in front of a class again
Employers also need to be shaken up. Van Gelder: “Whoever has to leave work after two years with health problems due to lung covid, is reaping very bitter fruits from this pandemic. We want to make agreements about this. To do this, we have to carefully map out the problems and this hotline helps with that.”
Lockdown
One of those affected is Ellie Tonen. She will be in group 2020 four days a week at the beginning of 6, when the newspaper reports become increasingly alarming. Corona is approaching our country bit by bit. At the beginning of March 2020, Tonen wakes up unfit one morning: feverish and short of breath. It gets worse fast. “In the end, I was in isolation for five weeks, upstairs in our bedroom.” When she was finally able to get out of bed, the hospitals were full and the schools were in lockdown.
Short of breath
As soon as schools reopened, Tonen tried to get back to work. “I went to school for an hour twice a week, for example to supervise a few students during a test.” But it didn't work anymore. “I am very short of breath, after five hundred meters of walking I am a total loss. I am also very sensitive to crowds and noise and I have a lot of headaches.” And she has no concentration at all. “I used to love to read, but after only two pages I forgot what the story was about.”
I forget a lot. The intern came in and asked where my apprentice was. Um – which student?
Brenda Kap, another affected person, knows those symptoms all too well. “I am 28 years old, and should fully enjoy the fact that I am a starter in education. But in the autumn break of 2020 I got sick. I think I was infected at school, but I'm not sure: at the time we thought that children would not be able to pass the virus on to adults so easily."
After two weeks of illness and quarantine, Kap tried to go back to the kindergarten where she worked. “I could barely stand up straight. I was constantly tired and my memory was failing me. If I no longer saw a child, I no longer knew it existed. At one point I only had a group of three students under my care in the emergency shelter. One walked away for a moment, and moments later the intern came in and asked where my third student was. Um – which student?”
vacuuming
Now, a year and a half later, Kap is still very tired – although fortunately she no longer forgets children. She is now reintegrating into school. “I am now present until half past one in the afternoon for support, I am twice in front of the class for half an hour and when I come home I have to go to bed. Then if I want to do something else that day, like vacuuming, I really have to plan for it. Otherwise I only get up to put a meal in the microwave.”
I am forty years old, but I feel like an eighty-year-old woman
Ellie Tonen also has to use her energy very sparingly. “I can only handle one activity a day – errands, visitors, whatever. Then the energy is gone. And I sleep an hour and a half every afternoon, because otherwise I won't get through the day. I am forty years old, but I feel like an eighty-year-old woman.”
Duration
The long-term covid also has financial consequences for those affected. Brenda Kap was paid 70 percent of her salary the first year of her illness. “It is great that this is arranged so well in the Netherlands.” But she is now, in her second year of illness, on XNUMX percent of her salary. “And being sick is expensive: where I used to take the bike, I now take the bus, for example. It's small amounts, but it all adds up."
Incapacitated
And those who fail to reintegrate await the so-called 'second track' - a job elsewhere, as it is called. Or disability. That is unfortunately the way it seems to be going for Ellie Tonen for the time being. “I have been subjected to a tax assessment. I can work a few hours a week, but it must be work without effort, without responsibility, without emotions, without incentives – a miserably long list. The Arboarts concluded that there is no work that meets all these requirements.”
And so she now has - at least for the time being - an application for disability benefits: the application for disability benefit. “I am a member of the AOb en the association accompanies me happy about that. It is nice that I am now well prepared for that meeting - they have even offered to come along.”
Fortunately, my memory is progressing – in small leaps. But with too many stimuli my brain shuts down again
Fortunately, Brenda Kap is doing a little better. “Fortunately, my memory is improving – by small leaps. But with too many stimuli, my brain shuts down again. And there are plenty of incentives, in kindergarten. Nice incentives, I don't want to miss them, but I wonder if I'll ever be able to properly stand in front of the class again."
According to Tonen and Kap, the most important function of a lung covid hotline for education is 'recognition and acknowledgment'. Tonen: "I hope that the hotline can make it clear - to politicians, to health insurers, to everyone - that long covid is really a big problem."
“I think it's very good that there will be a reporting point for people from education with long covid,” says Brenda Kap, who has already set up a Facebook group 'After covid for the class'. “Who knows, such a hotline could help those involved further. But just the number of reports already helps: then you see that you are not alone.”
Do you work in education and are you struggling with long-term complaints after a corona infection? Sign up at our hotline.
Long covid takes its toll: The Education magazine published an extensive article in December about people with long covid in education.
As the AOb-member, you are entitled to all kinds of support, for example with reintegration at work or applying for a disability benefit. Call our information and advice center, our employees will be happy to help you: 030 298 95 99. And become a member - together we stand stronger.
