Dr Rachel Weldon
Doctor; Born: September 14, 1957; Died: May 2, 2012. DR Rachel Weldon, who has died aged 54 after apparently taking her own life, was a popular resident doctor on the island of Eigg whose area of operation also included the neighbouring islands of Canna, Rum and Muck.
She was born Rachel Vermeer in Waalwijk, a small town near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Her father ran a shoe factory, but the young Rachel had her heart set on the medical profession.
And for 22 years – driven by her husband and boatman, Eric – she used a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) to make her rounds, sustaining the lives of 170 people on the four islands. Together with their collie dog, Laurie, the trio was featured on a monthly trip to Canna in June last year as part of Radio 4’s GPS Need GPS series.
The Small Isles practice could means weeks of cold, wet, hard work, followed by calm, Mediterranean blue seas and brilliant sunshine; moments of drama followed by weeks on call. Action then waiting – reading Tolkien or knitting while Eric rebuilt the house, cooked or went fishing or whale-spotting.
Eric Weldon, from Airdrie, met his future wife in Utrecht in 1981. She was studying medicine; he was visiting his sister and working as a painter. A trip to the Highlands with him in the mid-1980s changed their lives. She entered general practice and before they settled on Eigg in 1998, the couple travelled the Highlands, working from Aberdeen to Barra and the Orkneys. She was a GP in Keith, Fort Augustus, Helmsdale and Cromarty.
She had been reluctant to move permanently to Eigg, 15 miles south-west of Mallaig. Although the practice was advertised in 1990 she arrived first as a locum, but promptly fell in love with the island and took over as GP a year later.
In 1998 the island’s 64 inhabitants had just bought Eigg from the self-styled ‘Professor’ Maruma – the last in a succession of controversial, absentee lairds. The celebrated community buy-out finally had taken years to achieve.
Through that long period of stress, uncertainty, electricity shortages and substandard accommodation for some of the oldest residents, she was a calm and steady presence. Remote islands attract waifs, strays, or people looking to escape. Newspaper coverage also attracts the curious. Inevitably that meant accidents – ranging from serious fractures after falls from the sheer face of the Sgurr to severe seasickness among the judges who arrived for a Village of the Year competition. All were tended with care and professionalism.
There is no nurse, midwife or pharmacist on the Inner Hebrides – no-one else to do vaccinations, health checks or treat injuries that would be sent to A&E in a city. A patient with a suspected heart attack might be in an ambulance within minutes on the mainland. On Eigg – even on a good day – an airlift takes three hours. In bad weather or darkness, Rachel Weldon managed acute conditions overnight on her own.
But it was as a family doctor dealing with non-emergency and everyday health problems that she excelled. She was wonderfully straightforward as a doctor and yet managed to combine her role of objective professional with that of genuine neighbour.
She was dedicated to the practice and very worried the health board might close it down, as her predecessors Chris Tiarks and Hector Maclean feared before they retired. The threat of closure circled around the practice for her years on Eigg – no reflection on her work, but on the health board’s views about the cost of maintaining remote practices.
The loss of a GP would be a terrible blow for these communities, and she always let visiting politicians know the continuing existence of the Small Isles practice depended on their vocal support to fend off the bean-counters and bureaucrats.
She was found dead at her home on Eigg. In April she had been banned from driving and fined for being over the legal alcohol limit during a trip to Fort William.
The communities of Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna are stunned by her death. She is survived by Eric, mother Lily Vermeer, brothers Harry and Kees and sister Harriet.