Apology a step in Right direction

Ididn’t know Ruth Johnson. But a couple of my friends did. They got to know her through her work for Cancer Research UK and Business Beats Cancer Dundee. She devoted hours of her time to both causes as she was dying from the disease.

And they say she was amazing. Like genuinely, one of life’s exceptional people. Kind, upbeat and determined.

So intent on squeezing the zest out of every moment that you couldn’t help being swept along by her enthusiasm.

So I can’t imagine what a hole her death has left in her husband Les’s life.

And I wonder if some of Ruth’s zeal lives on in the battle he’s fighting now.

I’m only sorry he’s having to do it.

This week we revealed Mr Johnson has finally been given an apology from NHS Tayside for “unacceptable” care in the final months of Ruth’s life.

It’s taken more than four months.

But the health board has now said sorry for a number of issues, including “insensitive” communication, “unacceptable” personal comments and delays in referring her to a new oncologist when her previous doctor left.

Mr Johnson is calling for an independent investigation to be carried out, and for NHS Tayside to put in place procedures that will help to protect patients and families in the future.

“I’ve got to keep on fighting for what’s right,” he says.

“If nothing else comes out of this, Ruth’s legacy should be that no other cancer patients in Dundee have to suffer unduly as Ruth did.”

On its own it’s a tragic family story.

But it has to be considered against a backdrop of much wider concerns.

Ruth Johnson was one of around 200 women who were given “lower than standard” doses of chemotherapy treatment while in the care of NHS Tayside.

The move, which came to light in 2019, was intended to reduce some of the ghastly side-effects of chemotherapy.

A noble intention you might think.

However, a series of Scottish Governmentcommissioned reports claimed the practice had put patients at a 1% to 2% increased risk of seeing their cancer return.

They also criticised the clinicians involved for failing to fully inform patients of what they were doing.

Mr Johnson’s apology specifically references a discussion with a surgeon at NHS Tayside, who told his wife the health authority had “basically undertaken a trial” in providing those reduced doses.

Every single breast cancer consultant employed at NHS Tayside at the time has since left and the health board has been accused of throwing them “under the bus” over the scandal.

Given the controversy, it’s perhaps not surprising that their jobs have proved tricky to fill.

In January, we reported the region’s last remaining breast cancer consultants were also leaving.

One was due to retire that month and the other, who was recruited four months earlier, had already announced that he was quitting.

Patients who could travel were going outside Tayside for treatment. Others were going private.

Then there are the ones who can neither travel, nor pay...

Dundee Labour MSP Michael Marra has been pressing the Scottish Government to step in and provide external support to NHS Tayside.

Yet when he described the breast cancer service as being “on the brink of collapse” at the end of last year, he was chided by Deputy First Minister John Swinney for “expressing the issue in that fashion”.

Humza Yousaf, the health secretary, later accused

him of making “political attacks”.

Words matter. We get that. It’s why Ruth Johnson’s husband fought so hard to get a “sorry” out of NHS Tayside. But they’re not what politicians should be focusing on here.

Not when there’s so much more at stake.

There are exceptional people providing cancer care right across NHS Tayside at the moment. I know that for a fact. And it must be thoroughly disheartening to be giving your all to a service while its reputation is continuously making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

But the questions keep on coming and the answers keep on falling short of what’s required.

And it shouldn’t be the job of grieving husbands to fight for change.

● You won’t have heard the names on the newest memorial to be unveiled in Brechin this week.

The 14 local men and women were tried, and in some cases executed, after they were accused of witchcraft in the 17th Century.

It’s the first time the Witches of Brechin have been remembered in such a way.

It comes as efforts to secure justice for the thousands of people – mostly women – who fell foul of the Witchcraft Act are gathering pace.

The Witches of Scotland campaign has been working to win a pardon and an official apology for those who were accused, convicted and executed between 1563 and 1736.

This week the public petitions committee at the Scottish Parliament came to an agreement to write to the Scottish Government requesting consideration of its request for a national memorial.

They weren’t witches. They were ordinary folk like you and me.

Brechin’s newest memorial is another small and welcome step towards righting a terrible wrong.

CAMPAIGNS: Les Johnson, left, with a photo of his and late wife Ruth’s wedding. Above: The memorial to the Witches of Brechin which was unveiled last weekend.