Nicola Sturgeon's 5 Min Doctor Programme; the SNP controlled Scottish NHS wants to shunt responsibility for cancelling patient appointments onto sick people, be your own Doctor, no training or stethoscope required, if you think you're dying or deteriorating, just get in touch, what cretin came up with self analysis for heart patients, is this another SNP "special" akin to shipping plague victims into elderly care homes, can Sturgeon get the Nobel Prize for services to the funeral industry?

Dear All 

As SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon continually talks about Covid-19, it is worth remembering that the Scottish National Health Service is going down the tubes. Scots patients will a wide range of other illnesses can't get the help they need, and as queues get longer, people will serious illness are in danger of dying early. The Scottish NHS needs to deal with Covid, but it also needs to service and reduce the massive backlog of other cases. 

Some people with serious, life-long heart defects are being told hospital appointments as far ahead as 2022 cannot go ahead. Sticking them on a waiting list and calling it  Covid “contingency planning” is utter nonsense. We have already seen the destruction of dental services in Scotland, where poor people face a stark choice, pay to go private or lose your teeth. 

Part of health is quality of life, where is the quality of life if perfectly health teeth are ripped out when a cheap filling could be done? Why is the Scottish Government not pushing for dental services to return to normal? If the issue is PPE, then clearly this protection should be supplied to NHS dental surgeries. If it is not, then the questions should be asked, and raised in Holyrood and at every Sturgeon press briefing. Everything stopping isn't looking like Covid “contingency planning”, it's beginning to look like 'covid cost cutting'. 

If you have cancer or if you are an adult with congenital heart disorders who require life-long monitoring, your odds of survival have been drastically reduced. If you could be saved by treatment, you're facing uncertainty. People who need specialised help like those with congenital heart disorders can't wait, sending them letters from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) stating that scheduled check-ups which involve a range of clinical tests cannot take place is unacceptable. If there are “expected high demands” on the health service in the coming weeks, then why isn't the health service being redesigned, why aren't more nightingale hospitals being brought online? 

The lie being sold by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is the service is coping with demand, but being placed in limbo isn't coping, it's serial neglect. 

The letters sent to patients ask them to ineffective 'play' at being doctor, they are to get in touch if they “think their condition is deteriorating”. It takes 5 years to train a doctor, several more years for someone to be a consultant, but 'joe public' with a tin of band aids in the kitchen cupboard is suddenly elevated to being Dr Kildare? How does someone with a heart condition judge deterioration? If you are dehydrated, your heart speeds up, sugars in the body burn faster and you feel fatigued, you get dizzy and feel unwell. How many other imbalances would trigger the heart to act erratically? 

Well here is a un-exhaustive list 

Strong emotions like anxiety, fear, or stress. They often happen during panic attacks.

Vigorous physical activity

Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, or illegal drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines

Medical conditions, including thyroid disease, a low blood sugar level, anemia, low blood pressure, fever, and dehydration

Hormonal changes during menstruation, pregnancy, or just before menopause. Sometimes, palpitations during pregnancy are signs of anemia.

Medications, including diet pills, decongestants, asthma inhalers, and some drugs used to prevent arrhythmias (a serious heart rhythm problem) or treat an underactive thyroid

Some herbal and nutritional supplements

Abnormal electrolyte levels

Some people have palpitations after heavy meals rich in carbohydrates, sugar, or fat. Sometimes, eating foods with a lot of monosodium glutamate (MSG), nitrates, or sodium can bring them on, too. 

How would the joe public know if they have reached a health tipping point? 

If self diagnosis is the way forward, it will end up as a medical car crash with unnecessary cases causing a log jam in A&E which increases backlog, think of it like a junction where no one has right of way, everything slows down and then stops! 

Is there a case for new nightingales to be opened, I think the answer is yes, but it must be done in conjunction with a bespoke redesign of services during the pandemic. Everyone knows the SNP where late to the party, and their attempts at catch up have been a dismal failure. 13 years of SNP Government have been mirrored by their failure to plan, failure to plan to get more working class Scottish kids into education. This led to smaller nurses of Scottish Drs and nurses being trained to work in the Scottish NHS. 

The impact of a failed SNP education system ripples down the decades, There is a shortage of Drs and other staff and there has been for years, no action taken to fix it. The  medical speciality for heart treatment is also facing major shortages of consultants. Is the shortage because the SNP make Scotland such an unappealing place to work? The person who did my surgery left Scotland to work in the bright lights of London, better job, better prospects and better money, that was a pity, he was bloody good. Nicola Sturgeon bring in Jeane Freeman was supposed to be a big deal after her pal, Shona Robison was way out of her depth. The truth is since Sturgeon panned the service as an absentee minister, the health service has been leaderless. Jeane Freeman's appointment was a joke, she never turned around problems, and when the 'biggie' hit, it was literally a tsunami effect on the whole service, everything was up in the air. 

So, the reality on the ground, one patient said she received an appointment letter for a date in September 2022 and was later told it was cancelled “due to Covid”. Another  patient who has not been seen this year for her annual check-up due to the pandemic said her September 2021 appointment has now been cancelled. Others confirm they are still waiting for tests: 

She said: 

“It’s frustrating that our appointments have been cancelled, as we only get them once per year.” 

A spokesman for NHSGGC said: 

“Currently there are no blanket service appointment cancellations. Individual appointments may have been cancelled for a number of reasons.” 

A spokeswoman for NHS Golden Jubilee said: 

“Waiting times for outpatient appointments have increased as a result of the reduced capacity during the pandemic period and are subject to change as the situation evolves. Appointments will continue to be scheduled based on clinical priority. The service has put in place additional capacity for diagnostic sessions to help reduce waiting times and recover the activity lost during the last six months.” 

One has to wonder does the additional capacity include patients self diagnosing their own condition? 

Finally, years ago, I blogged furiously on the lack of working class Scottish kids getting their chance to go to university. The SNP came up with a free tuition plan which coupled with the interview system closed the door on many working class kids becoming medics. The bulk of those who got places to medical school were the middle classes, and foreign students who could pay the hefty fees, milked on all four tits for their hard cash. Then a few working class kids got places to pad out the diversity quota, and this allowed the universities to continue unchecked and still access the public purse for millions. As I said before, the SNP's failure to invest in Scottish people caused and will impact post covid on health. Covid has killed plenty in Scotland, but the real death toll from halting services and reducing services is still to be paid. 

And it will be paid in blood. 

Is it possible that someone could tackle Nicola Sturgeon about this on her daily freak show, let's make every day a frown day for Nicola!

Yours sincerely

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University