The Oban Times

Viewpoint

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M any readers will have been shocked to learn about 80-year-old Rosina McQue who fell in Oban town centre and had to wait more than an hour for an ambulance to attend to her. Because passers-by who stopped to help the pensioner were told not to move her, it meant she was left lying on the pavement for more than an hour before an ambulance arrived to take her to hospital.

While no-one is in anyway blaming the ambulance crew who eventually attended Mrs McQue, an injured person should not have to wait that long for medical assistance. The fact that the emergency services had to travel all the way from Inveraray to Oban is ridiculous. Of course the crew had to attend the person who had a cardiac arrest immediatel­y, but it should never be an either or situation.

Had the couple who this week wrote to us to thank NHS staff for the excellent emergency treatment their little girl received had to wait the same length of time, the outcome would have been far more tragic.

Questions have to be raised about the resources currently available here, in what is a very large geographic­al area. Is it a lack of qualified staff, money, or political will that seems to be leaving us without adequate cover?

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