‘It’s terrifying’: parents’ struggle to get help for children with long Covid Amelia Hill
On Christmas Day, Gail Jackson’s 16-year-old daughter said she was in so much pain she thought she would die. Liliana had been briefly admitted to hospital with Covid in September. Her symptoms never went away and, as time went on, new ones had emerged.
“For months she had a relentless, agonising headache, nausea, tinnitus, fatigue and insomnia, but the worst thing was the agonising nerve pain,” said Jackson. “I couldn’t even touch her without her screaming in pain.”
On Christmas morning, Jackson drove to hospital with her daughter vomiting from pain in the passenger seat. When they got to the hospital, however, the A&E doctor said there was no such thing as long Covid in children. “He said she just needed to go home and get on with her life,” Jackson said. “It was jaw-dropping.”
Using several devices at once like smartphones, computers and TVs – called screen stacking – is a growing habit in UK children, a new study suggests.
Researchers at the University of Leicester tracked the screen habits of 816 UK girls between the ages of 11 and 14.
They found 59 per cent of the girls used two or more screens concurrently during weekdays after school – but this figure reached 65 per cent in weekday evenings.
More than two thirds – 68 per cent – used two or more screens concurrently at weekends, while 36 per cent said they used multiple screens in bed.
Some of the girls admitted to using as many as four screens at one time, as screens increasingly become an integral yet concerning part of young people s lives .
The aftershocks of our children s lost year are clear – here s how parents can help
Deprived of interaction with other children and their normal school environment in lockdown, youngsters may need extra help from parents
27 April 2021 • 7:54pm
According to a recent survey, 96 per cent of English primary schools said they were concerned about speech and language development of four and five year old pupils
Playing with friends at break, being able to ask a teacher for help if they are stuck: in the unique social experiment that was lockdown, almost all the basic things children took for granted in the early years of school were suddenly taken away.
The catastrophic effect of lockdown on children has been laid bare by figures showing a surge in hospital admissions for eating disorders.
They reveal admissions in the last nine months were a third higher compared to the previous year. In one month they were up by 80 per cent.
Girls aged 15 and 16 were the worst affected. Experts also warned that children were arriving in hospital in a more severe and complex state, partly because they hadn t been picked up sooner by GPs or teachers.
Figures obtained by the Mail from NHS Digital show there were 2,292 admissions for youngsters aged ten to 18 with eating disorders between April last year and January, mostly suffering from anorexia and bulimia.
New Consultant Paediatrician appointed at University Hospital Limerick
Reporter: );
);
UL Hospitals Group has announced the appointment of Dr Siobhán Neville as Consultant Paediatrician at University Hospital Limerick.
Dr Neville is taking up a dual role that includes Senior Lecturer in Paediatrics at the University of Limerick School of Medicine.
Dr Neville graduated from University College Dublin with a first-class honours degree in Medicine in 2011 and completed her training in General Paediatrics through the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), during which she spent six months working in rural Tanzania, as part of the VSO-RCPI Partnership Programme.