‘Sick of the same old excuses’: SNP under fire as A&E patients left to wait 84 hours
PATIENTS have been left to suffer for days as they wait for emergency treatment at Scotland’s hospitals.
The crisis engulfing the NHS was laid bare yesterday as details of ‘horrendous’ waits of up to 84 hours for treatment emerged at Holyrood.
Miss Sturgeon was told patients were ‘sick of the same old excuses’ as she was forced to acknowledge the situation was ‘unacceptable’.
At First Minister’s Questions, Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said a patient faced a three-and-a-half day wait in A&E before they were seen in January this year. That is 21 times longer than the four-hour target set by the Scottish Government.
Another patient waited 79 hours at the same Ayrshire hospital in April.
Across Scotland, only 63.5 per cent of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in the week to September 11, the worst delays on record.
In the 13 months since under-fire Health Secretary Humza Yousaf published his NHS recovery plan, a total of 38,255 people have waited more than 12 hours to be seen at A&E. Mr Ross warned that the turmoil ‘is getting worse not better’ and accused Miss Sturgeon of trotting out ‘hollow words’ rather than taking action to improve the treatment of patients.
He quoted Dr Lailah Peel of BMA Scotland, who said this week: ‘As an A&E doctor I often tell people “A&E is a safe space: you can come here if you are in pain, if you’re sore, if you don’t know where to go”.
‘Our A&E departments are no longer safe and what’s really concerning is our government just aren’t acting and they’re turning a blind eye.’
Mr Ross said: ‘New information we’ve uncovered shows just how horrendous waiting times are in Scottish hospitals right now. An FoI [freedom of information] response has revealed one patient at a hospital in Ayrshire had to wait 84 hours for treatment – that’s three and a half days.’
He asked: ‘Is that really what anyone in Scotland should be going through in 2022?’
Miss Sturgeon replied: ‘No, and that is clearly an unacceptable situation but also an exceptional situation and I am certainly more than willing to look into the particular circumstances around that.’
But she repeatedly tried to claim that problems were worse in England and Wales.
Mr Ross also raised the case of a patient at Monklands hospital, Airdrie, who spent 24 hours in A&E over four days while suffering extreme abdominal pain and witnessed other patients being sent to wait outside in their cars.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar demanded that Miss Sturgeon and Mr Yousaf ‘do
‘Horrendous waiting times’ ‘Unacceptable situation’
your job’ as waiting times and waiting lists spiral.
He added: ‘People are sick of the same old excuses and this SNP government always looking for someone else or something else to blame.’ He asked: ‘After 15 years of running our NHS, how long will the people of Scotland have to wait for you and your Health Secretary to do your job?’
Miss Sturgeon replied: ‘We will continue to do our jobs and, ultimately, as always... it is for the people of Scotland to decide whether they want us to continue to do our jobs.’
Following the exchanges, the First Minister’s official spokesman said Miss Sturgeon believed ‘Humza’s doing a good job in incredibly challenging circumstances’.
SCOTLAND’S NHS is in its sickbed. Waiting times targets continue to be missed. A promised recovery after the pandemic has failed to materialise. The SNP prefers to spin figures and assert that treatment provision is worse elsewhere – cold comfort to patients in pain and distress.
Patients like the one in NHS Ayrshire and Arran who waited 84 hours to be treated. Patients like the one who spent 24 hours across four days trying to get treatment for severe abdominal pain at Airdrie’s Monklands Hospital. These were just two of the experiences raised by Scottish Tory leader douglas Ross at First Minister’s Questions. They exemplify how sharply the health service has been allowed to decline on the SNP’s watch.
over 15 years of Nationalist government, Scotland’s NHS has been run into the ground as a result of poor management, a long-festering recruitment crisis and a nearabsence of leadership at ministerial level. Patients have been failed and so have hardworking doctors and nurses.
The Scottish Government has two wellworn excuses. The first is the pandemic. While coronavirus undoubtedly took its toll, this is a partial and self-serving justification because the underlying problems in the NHS pre-date Covid.
When this fact is pointed out, ministers typically break out their second excuse: that the blame lies not with them but with Scotland’s demographic challenges.
Whenever troubles in the NHS are to the fore, Humza Yousaf will pronounce on the need for something to be done. But he is the person tasked with doing it. He is the Health Secretary. It is his job.
If he cannot do it properly, he should step aside for someone who can.