‘I was paralysed after getting the jab… but the payout won’t cover the cost of my disability’: AstraZeneca victim mother-of-three lashes out at ‘woefully inadequate’ Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme

Like tens of thousands of Brits, Clare Bowie’s life has been turned upside down during the Covid pandemic.

But the 56-year-old from Dumbarton, near Glasgow, was not left struggling with the virus for her life.

Instead, she was left paralyzed from the chest down after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid vaccination in April 2021.

The mother of three worked as an administrator at a submarine base for the Department of Defense for 37 years before being forced to take medical retirement after losing mobility in her hands.

However, Ms Bowie’s frustration lies with the ‘woefully inadequate’ Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, which does not cover the cost of her mortgage or the cost of adapting her home to the level of disability.

Ms Bowie was given the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 17, 2021, and two weeks later she was hospitalized at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley on May 2 with a mysterious developing paralysis.

‘I was completely paralyzed from chest level and it spread. I started to lose the ability to breathe and speak. It was scary,” Ms. Bowie recalled.

Doctors initially thought Ms Bowie had Guillian-Barre syndrome, a very rare and serious condition that affects the nerves and has been linked to complications with the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But after six MRI scans at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow, doctors diagnosed acute disseminated encephalitis complicated by transverse myelitis (ADEM), a condition that causes inflammation in the brain and spinal cord.

It can be the result of a minor infection and is the result of the immune system going haywire and attacking the nerves.

The doctors did everything they could to control the swelling. Ultimately, a combination of steroids and other medications helped half.

The doctors did everything they could to control the swelling. Ultimately, a combination of steroids and other medications helped halt the decline.

But she still couldn’t move anything from the chest down for three months.

Ms Bowie was paralyzed from the chest down for three months until she was offered rituximab, an immune-suppressing medication that has shown promise in tackling severe Covid infections.

In July 2021, still in Glasgow hospital, Ms Bowie recalls a consultant coming to her hospital bed with a student and telling her to try wiggling her toes.

“He told me to try wiggling my toes, and my left toe moved. I thought it was a cramp, but when I tried again it moved. “I hadn’t moved a muscle since May 2 and by July 17 I could move my left big toe and my left foot,” she said.

But due to muscle wasting, it was a long and slow journey to recovery.

After spending months in rehab beginning in September 2021 and being moved with a hoist, she eventually built up enough strength to stand with a zimmer frame and transition to a wheelchair, and was discharged in December 2021.

‘I do physio every day so I can walk. But it’s probably maybe about 20 steps. But it’s actually enough to take me from my bed to the toilet and to my living room chair. I can get there. So that’s good, it makes a huge difference,” she said.

‘If I’m completely honest, I’m just grateful to be alive. “It was so scary at first because no one knew what was happening to me,” she added.

Doctors never doubted that her paralysis was caused by the vaccine.

Mrs Bowie, mother of Nathan, 22, Cecilia, 21, and Michael, 19, remembers the consultant introducing himself and immediately telling her: ‘I think it’s Guillian-Barre syndrome and that’s because you’ve had the vaccine taken.’

“I even had a fight with him,” Mrs. Bowie said. ‘I couldn’t really believe that this could be the vaccine.

“He said it’s 100 percent the vaccine. He was absolutely sure and I am very grateful for that, because I assume that is why I received the vaccination injury benefit.’

The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, which has been in existence since the 1970s, offers people, or their families, a tax-free allowance of £120,000.

The policy, introduced in 1979, covers a range of government-recommended vaccines, including measles, mumps and rubella, and is intended to reassure people that, in the unlikely event something goes wrong, the state will provide support offer.

Mrs Bowie’s husband Dave, 55, applied for the scheme in October 2021 while she was still in hospital. But the money was not in her account until February 2023, a year and a half after the application.

“It’s been a while and you don’t really hear from them,” she said.

But after going through the process of applying to the government program, Ms Bowie says it is “woefully inadequate” and “traumatic for people”.

She said: ‘You think £120,000 is huge. I have worked in government all my life, I was not used to that money. But the bottom line is that you don’t pay off your mortgage and you don’t adapt your house.’

In 1979, £10,000 was given to people injured or killed by vaccines. This amount has been increased several times, but the current level (£120,000) was set in 2007.

But according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, that’s the equivalent of £195,183, meaning people are now missing out on around £75,000 in cash.

She said, “They’re going right through your medical records. I’ve talked to people who have refused to do this because something happened to them ten years ago. But I’ve been lucky and been a very healthy person, so they can’t base it on anything else.”

Strict eligibility criteria mean those affected must either have been killed or be 60 percent disabled as a result of a vaccine.

This means that someone who is theoretically only 59 percent disabled will not receive a cent.

The extent of a person’s disability is based on a physician’s assessment and can include either a physical disability, such as the loss of a limb, or a mental disability, such as a decline in cognitive function.

It also means that there is no escalation of the amount received.

For example, someone completely paralyzed by a vaccine would receive the same £120,000 as someone who has lost a leg.

Becoming blind or deaf counts as 100 percent disability.

‘People who have lost someone get the same amount as me and if you are 59 percent disabled, you get nothing. That scares me,” she added.

Ms Bowie admits her condition is ‘quite extreme’ and says she has never doubted the vaccine was the cause and has received nothing but support.

But she worries for those who are struggling to prove the vaccine could be the cause of their disability.

‘Can you imagine what it’s like for people whose hearts suddenly stop working properly, or feel dizzy every time they get up, no one believes them. Their lives have been completely changed and they are receiving nothing, not even basic support from the NHS,” she said.

‘The plan is so unfair. They will tell someone they are not disabled enough, but that person may have been a marathon runner and now can’t walk to the shops. ‘

‘Most people have a mortgage of a few hundred thousand, so this amount does not come close to paying off a normal mortgage.’

Mr Bowie, who previously worked in the Royal Navy, now works as an administrator at the Ministry of Defense and cares for Mrs Bowie.