OLDhimére Smith used to love his job as an English teacher in the Baltimore public school system. But she hasn’t taught since March 2020, when she caught COVID-19 and then developed Long COVID. Two years later, she is still experiencing symptoms including fatigue, migraines, blurred vision, chronic pain, and dizziness.
Smith said that she and her school district have not yet agreed on the conditions for her return to the classroom, so she is currently receiving disability benefits — but they expire in about six months, make her rely on Social Security or potentially force her back into the workforce. (A Baltimore City Public Schools spokesperson said in a statement that any employee with a diagnosed medical condition that affects their ability to work may request accommodation; The system approved 600 requests for the 2020-2021 school year, most related to COVID-19.)
The thought of potentially having to work before she’s ready, she said, stresses Smith to the point of physical pain. “Had to go back to work and know that I was still not feeling well enough,” she said.
Stories like Smith’s are common. Many people with persistent COVID symptoms are unable to work or have to do their jobs with extreme discomfort. People with other long-term illnesses, such as those with Long COVID disease are sometimes known, have cannot guarantee the rights of people with disabilitiesin many cases, because their symptoms defy easy-to-understand explanation or documentation, making it difficult to demonstrate they meet the disability criteria.
The situation is not unique to people with long-term COVID. Millions of people in the United States have a chronic illness or physical disability, and advocates have been calling for better workplace amenities and federal disability policies since before the Great Depression. Translate. But two big changes in the workforce — one alarming number of new adults with disabilities United States (many of them may be long term lovers) and millions of open jobs needs to be filled — which can eventually force companies to become more accommodating.
Many people with long-term COVID have relied on remote work to continue to have jobs. Working from home during a pandemic offers flexibility in terms of schedules, work styles, and dress codes, which helps some long-term addicts — and many who were disabled before the pandemic — keep working. their job easier.
But pandemic precautions are back, and many companies are insist that the employee return to the office. “Employers are trying to push people back in person [work]which means we’re getting back to ‘normal’ – and ‘normal’ doesn’t work for a lot of people,” said Mia Ives-Rublee, director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress , a nonpartisan, said the policy institute.
Taylor Martin, a 29-year-old lawyer and long-term traveler who has been contract work from her home in Minnesota during the pandemic, said remote work allows her to control her symptoms. his unpredictable symptoms, including neuralgia, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and temperature. regulatory issues. “I’ll be fine for a week or a month or a few days,” she said, “and then it’s like [I’m] got hit by a bus, and all is back. ”
Martin suffered from irritable bowel syndrome before she developed long-term COVID, so she never felt completely comfortable working in an office. But now that she’s also having COVID symptoms, she can’t imagine working outside of her home without major changes to her office life — but she knows that she will eventually. may be required to do so, as required by the legal field.
Ives-Rublee says employers can provide a variety of accommodations that make it easier for employees with disabilities to work. Just allowing someone to sit instead of standing at the cashier or front desk all day can make a big difference, she notes as one example. So it is possible to ensure regular breaks.
Martin says an office nap, or at least a quiet area where she can rest, helps on bad days. A flexible schedule that allows her to work from home during an outbreak is also important, she says, as are things like medication storage areas and a casual dress code that works for her. . temperature regulation problem.
Jack, a 40-year-old from Colorado, asked to speak by name only to candidly about his employment issues, out of a need for a flexible schedule.
After contracting COVID-19 in January 2021, he never recovered from fatigue and mental fog and was forced to leave his senior consulting job. Although his company asked him if he wanted to request the accommodation, he had no way of getting back to the grueling pace he kept to before getting sick. “I have a job where I have at least 60 hours a week,” he says, with frequent commuting. “It’s pretty tough when it’s completely fine.”
Jack received disability benefits while out of work, but they are due to expire soon. He’s considering finding a part-time job — but he needs an employer that will allow him to work short hours and understand the days when he can’t work.
“I can do well about two or three hours a day,” says Jack. “It’s a tough job to find, especially if I want to get anywhere close to replacing the money I’m making.”
Even well-intentioned employers find it difficult to modify certain jobs. For example, much of the healthcare work must be done directly and taxed, which complicates the work of coordinating health services for Jennifer Laffey’s employees at the Northwell Health hospital system in Northwell Health. New York. Approximately 35 of Northwell’s 78,000 employees have been diagnosed with long-term COVID and enrolled in program for long-term lovers. Laffey’s team works with HR and other departments to get them back to work and matches them with clinicians in the Northwell network for treatment.
In some cases, employees request a temporary change of responsibility. For example, a nurse who typically provides bedside care may work in a call center to answer patient questions over the phone. However, in the end, some positions are difficult to adjust. “It’s very difficult to get a surgeon out of the operating room,” says Laffey.
For those in a specialized role like this, leave is sometimes the only option – but not always enough. Some people recover from long COVID for a few months, but many tough enemies been sick for more than a year. It is unclear when there will be therapy that will allow them to return to normal.
Americans with Disabilities Act require employers to create suitable conditions for people with disabilities. However, as Smith and Jack found, that standard doesn’t always translate into a smooth transition back to work, because employers can’t or won’t make certain adjustments. or because people are too sick to maintain their positions. Some chronic addicts struggle to have their disability recognized.
Overall, less than half of applicants successfully receive disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. Long lovers often have a particularly difficult time because Long COVID is new, less understood, and difficult to document. Some people can have normal results on medical or diagnostic tests but still get sick for reasons doctors don’t understand, which makes it difficult to document why they can’t work. towel. Many people with long-term illness struggle to get their doctors to take their symptoms seriously, which makes this issue even more difficult to identify with benefit providers.
Smith, a former English teacher, says she can get disability benefits because she suffers from chronic migraines – but, she says, it’s just one symptom among many. She hopes Long COVID will soon be more widely recognized. “We need to be very clear about calling it, labeling it, diagnosing it [Long COVID] for what it is, so that more people can get its benefits and resources,” she said.
There has been some progress on that front. In March, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia announced that he had long-term COVID and helped recommend an invoice that will educate employers about long-term addicts’ rights and make it easier for patients to access support services. And as doctors learn more about Long COVID, hopefully it will become easier to diagnose and document.
But Ives-Rublee says more needs to be done to protect long-term smokers and those with disabilities and chronic illnesses of all kinds.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces laws to prevent discrimination in the workplace, is asking for more funding and the Social Security Administration needs more people, she said. handling backlog benefits claims. Expanding Medicaid will also give more people access to insurance and other needed benefits, she said.
A big problem like Long COVID requires systemic solutions. But in the meantime, some companies are working to improve. One is Goodpath, a personalized medicine startup that offers its services to businesses as a wellness benefit to employees. It recently created a app-based program for people recovering from long COVID. After completing a detailed questionnaire, each user was paired with a health coach and given daily tasks — like breathing exercises, stretching or olfactory training—Consistent with their symptoms. The program has just launched, so it’s too early to have data on its effectiveness, but Goodpath has already begun offering it to US employees of major companies, including Yamaha.
Goodpath CEO Bill Gianoukos said the company’s main goal is to help long-term lovers get better, but there’s also a financial incentive for employers to use the program. Many people have long COVID unable to see top specialists or enter specialist clinics, which means they frequently run from doctor to doctor, increasing healthcare costs without seeing much improvement. Goodpath aims to streamline that process, hopefully leading to better results for less money.
However, without the widespread adoption of programs like these or credible federal safeguards, some people with Long COVID are forced to admit that their careers may look very different from their own. with before the illness.
Jack, the former counselor, says he’s accepted the fact that work may not be an important part of his life unless he makes a substantial recovery. “If what I want in life is to be more of a family guy and less jet lag [career man]”, he said, ‘I think I can be fine with that. “
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