Nicola Sturgeon was told the NHS is at "breaking point" as she refused to answer Labour demands to give a "100% guarantee" to retain several local services.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale called on the First Minister to promise the children's ward at St John's Hospital in Livingston will not be axed following a review.
Ms Dugdale also pressed the SNP leader at First Minister's Questions on the future of other local services, as she revealed that stress last year cost the health service 287,000 staff days, a rise of 21% on two years ago.
The Labour leader, an MSP for the Lothian region, told Ms Sturgeon: "This really matters because it puts vital NHS services facing cuts under even more pressure.
"One of those services is the children's ward at St John's Hospital in Livingston, which is currently under review and potentially under threat of closure.
"The First Minister will tell us it is a decision for the health board, but she has over-ruled officials before and she should do so again now.
"My constituents would like a simple yes or no answer to this question - can the First Minister confirm once and for all she will not allow the children's ward at St John's to be either closed or downgraded?"
But Ms Sturgeon hit out at the Labour leader for "asking me to say now, before an independent review has concluded, that I will ignore any recommendations" to reduce services at the children's ward at St John's - which has previously been forced to close to inpatients as a result of staff shortages.
The First Minister, who previously served as health secretary, added: "The truth is that this is the Government that has protected St John's Hospital from the cuts that were planned to it by the last Labour administration.
"We will go on taking the decisions to protect St John's Hospital and hospitals right around our country."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel