Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital opens long-COVID and Lyme disease interdisciplinary clinic
Posted November 4, 2022 3:26 pm.
Last Updated November 4, 2022 6:16 pm.
A first of its kind in Montreal: a new clinic has opened for patients with persistent symptoms of COVID-19 and Lyme disease at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital.
“This is the answer and the key to a much better understanding of the disease,” says Dr. Karl Weiss, Chief of the infectious diseases unit at the Jewish General Hospital.
RELATED: New clinic for long COVID and Lyme disease patients opens at Montreal Jewish General Hospital
The clinic takes on an interdisciplinary approach to tackle a growing need.
“It’s very complex, both illness has to do with infectious diseases,” says Lucie Tremblay, the Associate CEO of CIUSSS West-Central Montreal. “I think that It was a good idea to bring this under the same umbrella, to really create some kind of synergy in the way that we’re treating people.”
#WATCH: “This is a major step,” says Dr. Karl Weiss, chief of infectious diseases unit at the Jewish General Hospital, which just opened a clinic dedicated to patients with symptoms of long COVID and Lyme disease. It’s an interdisciplinary approach.
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— Alyssia (@rubertuccinews) November 4, 2022
Dr. Weiss says the issue of long-COVID is becoming greater.
“We can see that up to 10 per cent of people who had COVID ended up having long COVID and at different degrees and levels,” he said.
The clinic’s criteria is you must be 18 years and older, have tested positive for COVID via PCR or a healthcare provided and have had COVID symptoms must last for at least three months.
“The vast majority are probably a like shortness of breath or anything which is related to respiratory symptoms,” says Dr. Weiss. “We tend to see a lot of neurological symptoms, including what we call brain fog and difficulty, for example, to concentrate or to do your daily activities.”
Montrealer Alejandra Del Valle has been living with post-COVID symptoms for over a year. (Credit: Alejandra Del Valle)
This is what Montrealer Alejandra Del Valle went through after being infected in July 2021. Since then, she’s lived with brain fog and parosmia.
“It’s a condition that your smell and your taste are distorted,” she said.
She describes her experience “horrible” when having meat, coffee or onions. Some things in the past had even tasted “disgusting.”
Del Valle says she’s tried to seek professional help in Mexico and in Montreal to no avail.
“When I went there, he was like, ‘There’s nothing I can do for you, so it’s you just need to wait,'” she recounted. “And I cried in the clinic because I was hopeful that there was something for them to do.”
Now, she’s hopeful that clinics like the one at the Jewish General Hospital will advance what we know about post-COVID conditions.
“When they’re not able to to find a solution or something that’s going to be coordinated, then they come into place and the physician or the NP can refer the client to the clinic and then they’ll be seen by the different specialist,” said Tremblay.
“I think this is a major step where you have like physician, nurses, physiotherapist, social workers and different groups of people working together,” says Dr. Weiss.
The clinic has been up and running since October 31 – and already demand is growing – with room for a thousand patients yearly.
“We have seen 40 patients, which sometimes patients come in for more than once in order to consult the medical team,” says clinic manager, Paula Yiannopoulos.
“We’re really learning about this process and we’re certainly going to learn a lot more in the next few years,” says Dr. Weiss.
