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NHS crisis cont...
patient forced to wait up to SIX YEARS in agony for vital op Click here to visit the Scotland home page for the latest news and sport By GEORGIA EDKINS SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Published: 19:59 EDT, 15 March 2025 | Updated: 20:00 EDT, 15 March 2025 e-mail View comments A woman has been left in agony waiting for up to six years for a hysterectomy, with the SNP being slammed for its broken promises on health. Grampian health board admitted one woman has been waiting as long as 2,122 days to get the vital surgery. The case exposes the scale of the NHS crisis under the SNP.
It comes after the revelation this month that more than 10,000 patients have died ‘in limbo’ on NHS Scotland waiting lists. Carol Mochan, Scottish Labour’s spokeswoman on women’s health, said: ‘Right across Scotland, women are being badly failed at the hands of the SNP. ‘Women are being forced to pay the price for SNP incompetence as they are left to suffer for months or even years waiting for hysterectomies.
'Behind the SNP’s warm words, plans and strategies on women’s health is a record of broken promises.’ A Labour freedom of information request asked about waiting times for a hysterectomy – surgery to treat womb-related problems including cancers – in each of Scotland’s health boards from 2019 until the present day. Waiting times for operations have soared amid growing pressure on the NHS Party research shows that in the majority of health board areas the longest waits experienced by women for the operation have risen drastically since 2019.
The longest wait for a patient in NHS Grampian went from 456 days in 2019 to 2,054 in 2024. Astonishingly, the ongoing longest wait is 2,122 days, as of December. Waits for the operation in NHS Borders were almost ten times longer than in 2019 – from 103 days to 990 last year – while in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde it was almost nine times longer, from 134 days to 1,129.
The longest waits in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire and Tayside last year were all more than 1,000 days – about three years. The average wait for a hysterectomy has also risen. In Lanarkshire, average waits are almost four-and-a-half times longer than in 2019-20, increasing from 61 days to 272 in 2024-25.
Average wait times in NHS Ayrshire and Arran have nearly tripled from 49 days to 145 in the same time. In NHS Grampian, patients wait for 408.5 days on average.
In NHS Borders, this figure is 290 and in NHS Lothian it is 269. Public Health Scotland figures show 10,304 people died in the year to the end of September 2024 while on waiting lists for initial outpatient appointments and NHS treatment. Deaths while waiting for agreed treatments, such as surgery, soared from 690 in 2013-14 to 2,151 in 2023-24 – up 212 per cent.
The Scottish Government said: ‘Gynaecology was an area targeted in our £30 million investment in planned care – delivering 3,500 additional new outpatient appointments.’ NHS Grampian said: ‘We have the lowest bed base per head of the population in Scotland and this, coupled with increasing hospital demand, is seen in the length of waits for procedures.’ SNP Share or comment on this article: NHS crisis cont.
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