The Post-Covid Care Clinic is a treatment-cum-rehabilitation programme to help patients who were infected with Covid-19 and who experience long-term difficulties because of their infection. The PCCC focuses on careful evaluation, focused treatment planning and continuing rehabiliation for such patients. It is a collective effort involving the Family Physician, the General Medicine and Pulmonology consultants, along with consultants from other specialities if needed, physiotherapists, fitness trainers, and nutritionists.

It is open only to those who have passed at least 28 days from the day they were first infected. Since they cease to be infectious, i.e., carriers of the virus, after the first 10 days, they may be safely treated at the Clinic 28 days after the infection, without in any way affecting any staff or patients at the Clinic.

It is now being realized that Covid-19 could have a long-lasting impact on the health of patients who have been diagnosed as Covid positive. It is seen that even in patients who might have had only mild symptoms or even no symptoms, patients experience various difficulties even after 4 to 12 weeks from the first day of infection. Medical professionals, and organizations like the WHO, the CDC and the NHS, now understand that post-Covid conditions are a significant health challenge, and that detailed assessment and continuinig rehabilitation might be needed to help patients get over the various medical conditions they have been affected by. It is in this context that Spring Garden has started the Post-Covid Care Clinic to help those who suffer from these conditions to optimallymanage their health.

Although 75% with COVID-19 get better within weeks of illness, some people experience post-COVID conditions. Post-COVID conditions are a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health problems people can experience more than four weeks after first being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.

According to the Centre for Disease Control & Prevention, there are three types of post-Covid conditions:

1. Long Covid: It is a range of symptoms that can last weeks or months after first being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 or can appear weeks after infection. The common symptoms are:

   • Tiredness or fatigue

   • Difficulty thinking or concentrating (sometimes referred to as “brain fog”)

   • Headache

   • Loss of smell or taste

   • Dizziness on standing

   • Fast-beating or pounding heart (also known as heart palpitations)

   • Chest pain

   • Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

   • Cough

   • Joint or muscle pain

   • Depression or anxiety

   • Fever

   • Symptoms that get worse after physical or mental activities

2. Multi-organ effects of Covid-19: Covid-19 could have long term effects on multiple organs like the heart, lung, kidney, skin, and brain.

3. Effects of Covid-19 treatment or hospitalization: The treatment followed for Covid-19 and hospitalization could have long term effects which are similar to those related to hospitalization for other respiratory infections or other conditions.

Most of the symptoms associated with Covid-19 resolve by themselves within a few weeks for most people. However, if your infection was severe and you required hospitalization, and/ or the symptoms persist after four weeks, it is advisable to consult your doctor. Even otherwise, if you feel tired, or the symptoms persist, or you get new symptoms even after 12 weeks, it is advisable that you see your doctor.

As we know, Covid-19 is itself an evolving pandemic, and many kinds of treatments are being advised for the infection itself . Doctors and organizations like the CDC, WHO, etc are only now beginning to understand the long-term effects of Covid. Consequently the evidence for effective treatment is only evolving. The Spring Garden Post-Covid Care Clinic will be following the latest treatment protocols for post-Covid conditions and will provide constant and careful monitoring to ensure that the post-Covid conditions of our patients are managed in the best possible way according to the latest protocols.

The general medical consensus is that a person who is Covid positive does not transmit the infection after 10 days from the first day of the Covid symptoms,which is why the Post-Covid Care Clinic accepts patients for post-Covid care only after 28 days.

There is much greater danger of Covid infection from undiagnosed, asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic Covid positive people, than from a known Covid positive patient who was first diagnosed with Covid 10 days ago.

No. Spring Garden is a Covid-safe Clinic as it does not treat Covid positive patients at the Clinic. However, such patients can be managed through an online consultation; they may usually be referred to a Covid-treating hospital if the doctor feels they need such care.

Treatment for Covid-19 is not provided at the Clinic. However, any patient who becomes Covid positive will not infect others or be a carrier of the infection after 10 days from the first day of infection. The Post-Covid Care Clinic is thus only for patients who have completed at least 28 days from the first day of infection and who may still have medical conditions resulting from Covid infection; they will not cause infection to others in the Clinic.

It is also true that, sometimes, previous medical conditions of patients who became Covid positve become worse after Covid. These patients will also have to be cared for.

As for each of us, whenever we are outside our home, it is always best to see every person we interact wtih as a Covid virus carrier and act accordingly by strictly maintaining handwashing and social distancing protocols.