A former ballet dancer forced to give up her passion after being diagnosed with ME has revealed the struggles facingPippa Stacey has since embarked on a successful career as a writer but said that statistics that this week revealed a rise in the number of people pushed out of the job market as a result of long-term health conditions is unsurprising as they face few options to work.
While Ms Stacey, 27, managed to get through her degree at York University, she had no illusions of the difficulty she would face in pursuing an ordinary office job after graduating. “Although conversations about disability and employment are thankfully on the rise, there’s still a long way to go in helping employers understand and accommodate for certain illnesses,” she said.
“If you’ve got a big slump, we’re looking at a likely proportion of that is due to long Covid,” said Ondine Sherwood, co-founder of the charity LongCovidSOS.