Scottish independence: the disastrous legacy of Nicola Sturgeon as Health Minister dramatically revealed, waiting times in A&E have tripled and Glasgow patient spends 8 hours on a trolley, the SNP don’t care about ordinary working class people

Dear All

Under the SNP Government, health was supposed to be a flagship policy.

Now, we know the truth after the tenture of Scotland’s unpopular Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

It was a shambles; the latest twist in the saga is a huge increase in the numbers of patients facing delays in treatment at accident and emergency departments.

Labour leader Johann Lamont sprung new statistics on Alex Salmond at First Minister's Questions, putting him firmly on the back foot.

Johann Lamont is using FOI to cite figures which showed those "languishing" in A&E departments had trebled in some parts of the country.

Trebled!

This is just another example of incompetence and shows why the SNP parachuted Nicola Sturgeon out of health before the cracks of her disastrous leadership appeared.

Sturgeon was interested in driving down targets in certain areas, rather than overall performance and people were taken in by the hype, smoke and mirrors approach.  

Everything in the Scottish Government has effectively stopped as the SNP Ministers chase the ill fated independence dream.

Lamont is on the right track to challenge First Minister Alex Salmond about A&E waiting times after 84-year-old John McGarrity was said to have spent eight hours on a trolley in a corridor at Glasgow's Western Infirmary.

Salmond doesn’t like to talk about personal cases of suffering rather he prefers to talk about general events and concepts coupled with rhetoric of ‘the rocks will melt in the Sun’ waffle he parrots continually.

She told Salmond:

"In John McGarrity's area of Glasgow, the number of patients who waited over four hours to be seen has more than trebled, going up from 10,100 in 2009 to 31,700 this year. Let's look across Scotland. In NHS Lanarkshire, the Health Secretary's own backyard, the number of patients waiting more than four hours in A&E has also more than trebled. In Grampian, the First Minister's own backyard, there was a 1300 increase in patients waiting more than four hours in A&E compared to last year."

As usual rather than accept responsibility, Alex Salmond choose to blame someone else despite the fact the SNP is in charge of health.

Budgets are being stripped in other areas to ensure money is available for painting Nicola Sturgeon as a success, this is a political decision.

So Salmond’s claim of "extraordinary financial pressure" doesn’t stack up in my opinion.

Salmond added on his claim of extra funding that, this would not have happened under Labour which is in no "position to pose as the defender of the National Health Service."

We are living under a right wing government, that is what the SNP is, and to make a claim of what Labour would or would not do while not in a position to do so, is the hallmark of a child.

When the earlier disaster in health was outed to the public domain, the SNP Government suddenly found £50 million of funding announced by Health Secretary Alex Neil.

The speed that this cash was announced says a lot, not that the SNP were proactive only that they kept cash back.

Johann Lamont concluded:

"If the First Minister ever made it out of Bute House to the real world and met a patient waiting for treatment on a trolley, we can assume he would reflect as the person was lying in front of him and say, 'Listen, you are more satisfied with the NHS than ever before'."

The hits by Labour are certainly striking home on Alex Salmond as his approval rating continues to drop.

Far from being an asset, he is heading towards being a liability, with the latest indy poll showing hardening of a No vote against indy, people are wising up, this SNP Government is like the last days of Tony Blair.

And that case was terminal.

The problems in the NHS can be placed firmly at the door of Nicola Sturgeon, she set the culture; Alex Neil is still floundering in the debris.    

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University