A local MSP is set to tell the Scottish Government to stop “shamefully abandoning” rural healthcare services during a Scottish Conservative-led debate today (Thursday).
Buckie-based Shadow Rural Affairs Secretary Tim Eagle will use a members’ business slot in Holyrood to expose what he branded the SNP’s “appalling failures” in delivering crucial services for patients in rural Scotland.
Upgrades to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin will be one of the issues raised during today’s debate in the Scottish Par,iament by Highlands and Islands MSP Tim Eagle.
He says that those living in these areas, including in his own Highlands and Islands region, face “unique challenges” in accessing health and social care because the SNP government have failed to invest in healthcare infrastructure over the last 18 years.
Mr Eagle added that all too often rural patients are treated like “second-class citizens” and that more and more frontline services are either being shut down or centralised.
He went to to demand the Scottish Government accept their current approach is “simply not working for rural patients”, as he urged them to finally prioritise upgrading health facilities across rural communities.
Mr Eagle MSP said: “Rural healthcare services have been shamefully abandoned by the SNP.
“Patients living in rural Scotland are being treated like second-class citizens and are repeatedly seeing crucial frontline services being closed or centralised away from their local community.
“For the last 18 years, the SNP have presided over appalling failures when it comes to delivering health and social care to rural Scotland, including in my Highlands and Islands region.
“This debate will highlight the unique challenges rural patients face in accessing GPs, hospitals and mental health services, compared with people living elsewhere.
“The SNP must use our debate to accept their current approach to delivering rural healthcare is simply not working. They must stop breaking their promises to rural Scotland and invest in the frontline healthcare infrastructure that is urgently needed.”
Mr Eagle’s motion reads: “That the parliament considers that people living in remote and rural areas face unique challenges when it comes to accessing health and social care; understands that the recruitment and retention of staff, poor infrastructure, and the inability to access certain services are all common issues that impact health and social care in rural and remote areas; notes what it sees as the failure of the Scottish Government to deliver infrastructure investment in the Highlands and Islands region and elsewhere, including the failure to deliver a new Belford Hospital in Fort William, complete upgrades to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin, and build a replacement hospital for the Isle of Barra, among other delayed projects; understands that many communities in rural areas face a reduction of services, such as the reduced access to NHS dentistry in Dunoon and loss of care home beds across the Highlands and Islands region; believes that all of these factors contribute to the wider issue of rural depopulation, and notes the calls for the Scottish Government to properly invest in health and social care in rural and remote areas and deliver better health outcomes for residents.”