The mother of a Long Covid sufferer has said the health minister’s recommendation in Tynwald to search for symptoms on the post-viral illness yourself ’isn’t good enough’.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Lawrie Hooper said there was enough messaging around Long Covid and that people should use the ’wealth of resources’ online to educate themselves on it, as well as go to their GP.

Cat Haxby, head of the Manx Long Covid Children support group, disagreed with Mr Hooper’s points, saying: ’The government need to understand the extent of this and nobody knows about it because nobody’s being listened to. There’s no education about it. It’s just heartbreaking. I get very emotional reading the stories of the parents that message me.’

Mrs Haxby is mum to a nine-year-old Gabi Haxby, who developed Long Covid after suffering with the virus in March last year, and has struggled to get a diagnosis since then.

Mrs Haxby said: ’I think GPs need more support because every time we have been they just send us home because we don’t know what is going on with Gabi. Every time we’ve been to the GP, there’s been no mention of Long Covid. I do think there is a massive gap for this and it is essential that it does need to be in place for early treatment and prevention.

’I said to the doctor, "have you heard of Long Covid? I think Gabi has symptoms" and he said "I’m not that knowledgeable about it".’

Mr Hooper said that the UK has lots of resources online regarding the post-viral infection, how to identify if you have it and manage your symptoms. He added that GPs would be getting updated guidance and training in March.

The 41-year-old said: ’For the health minister to actually say "do some research yourself", well there’s so much research that you can look at but you don’t know if you’re looking at the correct thing so I think they should do some local information.

’A lot of people suffer from fatigue as a result of Long Covid, some of them don’t have the energy to search for this stuff. When Gabi first started displaying symptoms, I was searching endlessly for months on end - there’s so much information, you don’t know what you’re looking at. It’s a minefield.’

The health minister revealed there were only six people currently in the Long Covid Manx Care treatment pathway, with three more on the waiting list.

’How many people actually know about this pathway? How many GPs know about the pathway? I’d never heard of this Long Covid pathway ever. When they said there were only six people on it, I thought that’s very low but if you look on local support groups there are so many people asking for help,’ said Mrs Haxby.