A FORMER GP has called for full funding to be restored to an award-winning hospital that provides holistic care, to tackle an anticipated surge in long Covid patients.

Dr Patrick Trust said an “unhelpful” association with homeopathy had led to the majority of Scottish health boards pulling funding from Glasgow’s Centre for Integrative Care (CIC), which is the UK’s only purpose-built service for person-centred holistic healthcare.

While he is not an advocate of the controversial plant-based treatments, he said the CIC had much to offers patients with chronic illnesses, such as Fibromyalgia, who place huge demands on the health service.

A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the CIC was "actively involved" in organisational planning for the treatment of long Covid.

The hospital was founded in 1880 and moved into its current £2.78million facility on the Gartnavel campus after a fundraising campaign bolstered by legacy donations. 

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At one point, the CIC had 15 beds and was taking around 200 referrals a month for therapies including acupuncture, counselling and physiotherapy but services have gradually been reduced due to funding cuts, mainly by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

“We have a group of people who are poorly looked after,” said Dr Trust, who worked as a GP in the Vale of Leven area.

“A lot of colleagues see these people as troublesome. They have quite complicated needs, they have been through the system and the system hasn’t helped them. We give them painkillers but that is not the solution. 

“People who have seemingly insoluble problems are very demanding of the health service. I had two particular patients who used the call the out-of-hours service more than anyone else in the area - one had been to four Glasgow hospitals and nobody had helped them. 

“I would speak to Dr David Reilly, who was at the CIC then.

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“It took a year or two of those patients attending and one of them went in for a while and the difference was dramatic.  They are not cured, they still get pain sometimes but it’s now managed with much fewer drugs and no admissions to hospital. It makes an incredible difference to treat the whole person.

“In addition to that they have stopped calling out-of-hours help. People don’t count that sort of thing, it’s not measured in the health service.”

Dr Trust, who lives in Cardross, said the demands placed by chronic illness on the NHS will be compounded by Long Covid.

A recent study led by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) at Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, found there was a need for wide-access to post-Covid  rehabilitation services.

“Long Covid is going to be a problem. Doctors won’t know how to manage them,” said the doctor.

“There has been a problem with cancer during the pandemic and GPs will be thinking, we can’t miss this and someone with a long-term chronic problem is not going to get the attention they deserve,” he said. “We need somewhere like the CIC, which GPs can use.”

Since 2010, nursing staff have been cut from 22 full-time workers to two full-time workers and 1 part-time worker.

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Six doctor positions have also been cut, with only one replaced. The centre has also lost its pharmacy, in-patient capability and weekend clinics as a result of NHS funding reductions. 

Rona Agnew,former NHS manager and currently Chair of Friends of the NHS Centre for Integrative care in Glasgow believes the hospital is best placed to "champion a move towards integrative medicine."

She said: “We believe strongly that more person-centred, integrative care is the only realistic approach to the current mental health and post-viral pandemic we are facing in Scotland and urge anyone who is similarly minded to contact their MSP and urge full funding for the NHS Centre for Integrative care to be restored.” 

A spokesman for NHS GGC said: "The CIC is actively involved in our organisational planning to deal with Long COVID as part of a range of measures being worked up by many services within NHSGGC.”