The global COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on European health and social care systems
Demands on testing, hospital and intensive care capacity exceeding available resources everywhere—leading to concerns that vulnerable groups, including autistic people, have been excluded from services.
A new paper published in the BMJ by researcher Amber Ruigrok has found that autistic people experienced significant barriers when accessing COVID-19 services.
Despite being at elevated risk of severe illness due to co-occurring health conditions, there was a lack of accessibility of COVID-19 testing.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated existing healthcare inequalities for autistic people, contributing to disproportionate increases in morbidity and mortality, mental health and behavioural difficulties, and reduced quality of life. This widespread exclusion of autistic people from services represents a violation of international human rights law.
Many COVID-19 outpatient and inpatient treatment services were reported to be inaccessible, predominantly resulting from individual differences in communication needs.
Furthermore, ICU triage protocols in many European countries (directly or indirectly) resulted in discriminatory exclusion from lifesaving treatments.
And finally, the study found that interruptions to standard health and social care leftover 70% of autistic people without everyday support.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated existing healthcare inequalities for autistic people, probably contributing to disproportionate increases in morbidity and mortality, mental health and behavioural difficulties, and reduced quality of life.
An urgent need exists for policies and guidelines on the accessibility of COVID-19 services to be updated to prevent the widespread exclusion of autistic people from services, which represents a violation of international human rights law.
Amber’s co-authored article is published in the BMJ and is available here>>
Amber is a researcher at the Autism Research Centre within the Department of Psychiatry and a Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College find out more about her here>>
Image credit unsplash.com/@ryantauss