Covid Vaccine Victim “Not Disabled Enough” for Compensation

A nurse who was struck down with a rare neurological condition that left her unable to use her limbs while taking part in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trial was denied access to compensation because she was not disabled enough. The Telegraph has the story.

Marie-Claire Hoyle volunteered to get the vaccine in 2020, but two weeks after receiving her second dose she developed transverse myelitis, a paralysing inflammation of the spinal cord that left her in agonising pain and unable to use her limbs fully.

Her condition was so alarming that it led to a temporary worldwide shutdown of the vaccine trial while scientists evaluated the situation and assessed the severity of her symptoms.

But because her condition had improved over time and she has since regained most of her lost function, the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) ruled that she did not meet the qualifying threshold of being 60% disabled.

Hoyle is calling for reform of the state compensation system for people left injured by the jab.

She said that the initial effect of the transverse myelitis was severe.

Hoyle said: “I lost the ability to use my hands, I couldn’t hold a pen, I couldn’t hold a toothbrush. I was completely numb from my collarbone down to my thigh level because the signals from my spine and brain had been damaged.

“I’ve had an MRI since and there is still damage in my spinal cord, which will never heal. I have really poor grip in my fingertips, so I constantly drop things. I still have nerve pain down the left side of my arm and numbness across my central chest and that will never resolve.”

The Government is preparing to respond to recommendations – including calls for reform of the payment scheme – published last April by Baroness Hallett’s independent COVID-19 Inquiry.

The VDPS entitles eligible victims to a one-off payment of £120,000 if they can prove that their injuries were as a result of the vaccine and that they meet the stated level of disability. Lady Hallett wants the payment to be scaled so that those with less debilitating effects can also be compensated.

Hoyle, 44, who is a qualified advanced nurse practitioner and works as NHS England’s network manager for high-consequence infectious diseases, said that when she applied to the VDPS, she was refused.

She said: “They acknowledged that the vaccine caused my transverse myelitis, based on the evidence I supplied with all my medical records, and at the time I was seriously harmed on a value of up to 60%.

“However, they said: ‘You aren’t now, so you don’t need the payment.’

“And I understand that, but there needs to be a change in that because I do still have some pain, some weakness in my hand.

“Instead of it just being that you have to be 60% disabled at a minimum, for life, it should be more modern in terms of what’s justifiable to the person and what they have now. And it should be a scaleable payment, as opposed to a cut-off.”

Worth reading in full.

The bigger story here is surely that the AstraZeneca trial was not ended and the jab withdrawn when this occurred – we can only wonder at what strings were being pulled behind the scenes to keep the show on the road.