Terminally-ill woman calls for Robison to go

Secretary faces more pressure after gran tells of two-hour wait for ambulance

A terminally-ill grandmother who waited two hours for an ambulance has called for the health secretary to step down.

Nicola Sturgeon issued an apology yesterday to brain cancer patient Margaret Goodman for the ambulance no-show.

Mrs Goodman, a former teacher who was a union area secretary in Fife, suffered “excruciating” pain” during a wait that only ended when her husband drove her to hospital, where she endured further treatment delays.

The Clackmannanshire grandmother was one of 16,865 people in Scotland last year waiting at least an hour for an emergency ambulance, according to figures compiled by Scottish Labour.

Mrs Goodman, a mother of three, said her long wait for help on April 7 was “horrendous”, adding she cannot believe that thousands of others have had similar experiences.

She called 999 three times after district nurses said she must be admitted to hospital following a collapse.

“To find out that there’s actually 16,000 ambulances (which take longer than an hour to arrive), it goes to the basics of where you expect to be when you’re ill,” Mrs Goodman said.

“I would expect that if I need an ambulance an ambulance would come. And to find that out was quite shocking. It’s the scale.”

Shona Robison is already under huge pressure amid the cash crisis at NHS Tayside and GP shortages, including the shutdown of out-of-hours services in Fife.

Asked if the health secretary should resign over ambulance performance, Mrs Goodman said: “I think she should.

“It’s the one at the top – it’s always the one at the top. Who else is responsible?”

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard raised Mrs Goodman’s case during First Minister’s Questions yesterday.

Mrs Sturgeon said: “We expect the highest standards of care for patients across the country and on occasions where that doesn’t happen it’s very important that lessons are learned and applied for the future.

“If (Mrs Goodman) received care that was not of the standard she expected, and from what Richard Leonard has outlined today it certainly appears that that is the case, then of course she deserves an apology and I offer that to her.”

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said they received a call that was not immediately lifethreatening and then were told that the ambulance was no longer required.

“However, Mrs Goodman waited longer than we would have liked and we would like to apologise,” she said.

“We are happy to meet with her to discuss this further and we are investigating the circumstances.”

Picture: Mhairi Edwards. Health Secretary Shona Robison is facing fresh calls to resign after a terminally-ill Clackmannanshire grandmother had to wait two hours for an ambulance.