Long Covid: 'Rishi Sunak hasn't given me a penny and so I'm selling my house'

21 October 2020, 13:04 | Updated: 21 October 2020, 14:15

Long Covid: "Rishi Sunak hasn't given me a penny and so I'm selling my house"

This is the moment a long-term sufferer from Covid-19 told LBC she is going to sell her house due to not receiving enough support from the Government.

Nic from Cheltenham, who has been living alone for the past nine months, told LBC's Nick Ferrari it had been 300 days since her first Covid symptom appeared and that she was officially diagnosed with the virus in June.

The exchange took place as Health Secretary Matt Hancock has urged people to follow guidelines to protects themselves and others from the potentially debilitating long-term impact of COVID-19.

Nic told LBC: "I've got sick notes going back to the January 2nd and I'm not eligible for any benefit at all. I can hardly walk [and] I can't pick up a coffee cup without smashing [it]. I can't do a bra strap up, I can't brush my teeth, and yet I'm not eligible for anything."

"I used to work in the City in investment banking and finance for 30 years. I ran three companies of my own. I've never been able to have children but I've given money to charity and supported my own father and my brother and paid every tax and done every self-assessment.

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"And Rishi [Sunak] has given me not a penny, and I'm selling my house because of it."

Nic also told LBC's Nick Ferrari that she was "99% sure" where she became infected with the virus.

"I was at London Gatwick Airport on December 22nd when seven plane flights came in from Wuhan that day, and I stayed in the hotel airport that night with people who came off those flights," she explained.

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Speaking of the impact the virus has had on her in the long-term, Nic also said: "It has taken away my life. It has ripped me of everything. I used to be a really self-confident, independent, successful person.

"And the one thing that I hate most is my dependency on everybody for everything, for food, for mobility, for getting prescriptions."

Nic also said: "People talk about losing their smell of their taste, both of which I've lost. But I've sat there on birthday in February with my ears bleeding and my gums bleeding and my blood pressure higher than the people in the old people's home down the road from me..."