Identification of post-COVID-19 after effects - patients and relatives |
“At the moment I can’t even walk properly because of these swollen legs. I walk slowly. I can’t even walk straight” (E22) “You are someone who’s always worked independently, now I depend on her [wife] for practically everything. My life turned upside down. I can no longer do anything alone. I always liked doing everything. Now I don’t do anything anymore” (E11) “So, I tell you, I wasn’t going to die from COVID, I was going to die of sadness... First, because I started to feel like a nuisance at home, getting in people’s way in everything. Then the social abandonment that we begin to feel. So, I was going to die of sadness, of depression, you know? Because it’s a disease that affects everything. If it were only physical, fine, but the emotional part... the whole physical structure is impacted...” (E1) |
Health services used in post-discharge follow-up |
“You knock on a door and it’s: ‘no’. You knock on another: ‘no’. Then despair begins to set in... I left [the hospital] one day, the next day I spent more than BRL 700 on medicine. Then I had to do some tests and get more medicine, in all it cost almost BRL 3,000. I mean, for me, who am retired, it was money that I had to borrow here and there” (E1) “And then it gets all confused, part is private, part is SUS. We can’t wait, see? We cannot just depend on SUS” (E11) “When they called me [from the rehab], I didn’t think twice! I’m taking a medicine there on my own account, Venaflon, which the doctor prescribed because of my inflammation [in another situation]. So, as it’s for circulation... There was a lady who had thrombosis, and she is taking this medicine. And since it’s for circulation, I continue taking it every eight hours. And they say aspirin thins the blood, I also take one every other day” (E27) “At the end [hospital discharge], the doctor said: ‘He can go, his lungs are almost normal, he can finish the treatment at home’. Then I already took him to the Cartão para Todos program. I went right away, I didn’t leave him at home. I made an appointment for him to see the pulmonologist and continue the treatment. When they called [rehabilitation service], he had already undergone a lot of treatment...” (wife E12) “The x-ray is BRL 50. The electrocardiogram I think is BRL 65. Full blood tests, they do a package: HIV, COVID... if you need the package, it costs BRL 112. They do all the tests at once. Like the check-up for women during the October campaign. There’s a gynecologist there, breast screening. But that’s more like once a year” (E9) |
Evaluation of health services for post-discharge follow-up |
“Then I even thought that he [FHS doctor] was going to refer me to an orthopedist, a physical therapist, but there was no opening. Too many people. Then I didn’t even do it. I did some exercises, more or less, at home...” (E27) “And it was here, with physical therapy, speech therapy, medical care, general practitioner, that I started to walk again, that I started to improve. But I tell you that if this place hadn’t opened, to this day I would be without these treatments because the primary health centers say they are not prepared for post-COVID care” (E1) |
Access to rehabilitation services |
“It’s hard to get to be referred here [rehabilitation]. It’s hard. When I found out it was going to open, I said: ‘Let’s go there!’, ‘We’re going to knock here and who’s going to... you weren’t hospitalized there, how are they going to accept you there? No way it’s going to happen’” (E11) |
Evaluation of rehabilitation service |
“Right. I’m not leaving, now it’s going to become a clinic too. I’m going to stay right here. They even asked if I was going to put a bed here to stay the night. I’m here every day [laughs]” (E13) “Here there’s the general practitioner, there’s everything. He’s here, patients are seen by the practitioner, the physical therapist, the nutritionist, the speech therapist, they even dressed a wound on his foot that he already had” (wife E12) |