NHS doctor takes housebound daughter to Germany for Long Covid treatment
WATCH: Dr Kane's daughter was treated with drug therapy in Germany and slowly got better over 6-8 months.
A doctor who took her daughter to Germany for treatment after she contracted Long Covid, said the NHS needs to "keep up with the science".
In an interview with ITV Meridian, Dr Binita Kane, NHS Respiratory Consultant said: "I think the NHS is doing its best given the resources that it's been given but if you're going to solve a problem, one of the fundamental issues is to understand the problem you're trying to solve and there hasn't been an acknowledgement that long covid is a multi system, complex, largely vascular disease that is debilitating tens of thousands of children across the country.
"We are stuck in a model where we're giving children rehab and psychological therapies and the NHS isn't keeping up with the science that's rapidly emerged over the last few years that's really helped us to understand what's causing the condition.
"A year ago my daughter, who was then 11, had been housebound for nearly a year with long covid. She was needing a wheelchair for distance and it was absolutely devastating to our family.
"Now, I'm a doctor and a scientist and I just wasn't willing to accept that this level of disability in a previously healthy child was normal and that there was nothing we could do.
"I sought to connect with scientists from across the world and I was really lucky enough to go out to Germany and they were able to look at my daughter's bloods under a microscope and they could see that she had very sticky blood, with clotting abnormalities and it made sense to me that that sludgy blood clogging up her little capillaries were then not able to give oxygen to the muscles and the tissues that she needed.
"She was treated with drug therapy for the abnormalities that were seen and then slowly over 6-8 months she got better. Now, those treatments weren't without some small risks but to me, the risk of doing nothing was far higher at that stage.
"We're learning more and more about this disease every single day. There are definitely treatments on the horizon. I have shown with my story, that with the right support, with the right diagnostics and the right treatment, recovery is possible and that there are many stories of recovery right across the world. We just need to bring that out to everybody else now."
An NHS spokesperson said they have invested 90 million pounds over the past year in services for people with long Covid and that includes specialist hubs for children.
It added that another 90 million pounds will be invested next year, alongside a plan to increase capacity, prioritise treatment and provide better information and support for patients.
What are the symptoms of Long Covid?
The most common symptoms of are extreme tiredness (fatigue), feeling short of breath, loss of smell and muscle aches.
But there are lots of symptoms including problems with memory and concentration widely known as 'brain fog.'
Other symptoms include chest pain or tightness, difficulty sleeping, heart palpitations, dizziness, pins and needles, joint pain, depression and anxiety, tinnitus, earaches, feeling sick, diarrhoea, stomach aches, loss of appetite, a high temperature, cough, headaches, sore throat, changes to sense of smell or taste and rashes.