‘The coughing would not stop’: MP talks of ‘unbearable pain’ of Covid

A shadow minister who became the first female MP to be hospitalised by Covid-19 has described the “unbearable pain” caused by coughing fits and pneumonia as the disease took hold.

Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP for Bolton South East and a shadow minister for international development, said she was left “anxious and concerned” after being rushed by ambulance to her local hospital in October.

Two months later, she is slowly returning to normal but still struggles to take her once regular walks.

In her first interview about her experience of coronavirus, Qureshi, 57, said that, as for many others, her illness began with a fever and developed within a week into a continuous cough.

“The coughing would not stop. I used an oximeter and it showed that my oxygen levels went down to 89/90,” she said. She was prescribed medicines and steroids, which eased some of the symptoms, but the coughing fits continued, she said.

‘It was hurting the base of my stomach, my chest. I could feel a physical pain inside. My oxygen levels then dipped to 85/86. But it was the coughing that really began to hurt. At times, the pain felt unbearable. I coughed so much that I threw up,” she said.

After speaking to a friend who is an accident and emergency consultant, her husband of 12 years, Nadeem Ashraf, called an ambulance to their home in her constituency. “When the medics said they were going to have to take me into hospital, my husband looked really worried – the colour had drained from his face,” she said.

After six days of treatment at Royal Bolton hospital, Qureshi was allowed to return home, but her recovery has been slow.

Before contracting Covid, she would take regular 7-8km walks. On Friday, she was left exhausted after going out for a 2km walk, she said.

A non-practising criminal barrister, Qureshi said she was concerned by reports that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities were less likely to consider being vaccinated against Covid and that disreputable claims were circulating on social media.

A study from the Royal Society for Public Health found 57% of minority ethnic people said they would take the vaccine, compared with 79% of white people.

Among the vaccine rumours rejected as groundless by independent health experts have been suggestions that immunisations could change someone’s DNA. “I know that people, and others, talk about these conspiracy theories. I would urge people to get vaccinated,” she said.

Qureshi was the third MP known to have been hospitalised by Covid. Tony Lloyd, 70, the MP for Rochdale, was put into an induced coma and placed on a ventilator in April. Boris Johnson, the prime minister, was admitted to intensive care in the same month.

She urged the government to control the pandemic. “I genuinely try not to be party political, but I think that the government since the beginning of the pandemic has been behind the curve. There have been too many mixed messages about going to schools, what students can do, where you can shop or go to the pub, and it doesn’t take into account the local infection rates. It is as if there has been no plan or consistency,” she said.