A health board has apologised after some routine operations were postponed due to theatre staffing shortages.
NHS Grampian said the delays to the non-emergency procedures were a "last resort" amid difficulties filling nursing vacancies.
Some 147 operations were cancelled over November and December at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, the health board said.
And 13 operations due to take place at the hospital this month have been cancelled so far, bosses confirmed.
They blamed "ongoing theatre staffing challenges and winter pressures, not budgetary constraints".
A spokeswoman for NHS Grampian said: "We apologise to any patients whose procedures have had to be re-scheduled.
"Postponement of an operation is never a decision that is taken lightly and we will always explore every opportunity to avoid this situation."
She said there are more than 30,000 operations carried out each year in the area, with the number postponed usually between 1% and 2%.
The spokeswoman added: "Rearranging elective procedures is a last resort for us and is done according to clinical prioritisation: our most clinically urgent patients will still be seen.
"When providing staff for a theatre list of operations on any given day, the theatre nurses must meet the needs and skills required for that speciality and have enough knowledge to act as a skilled practitioner to maintain safe practice.
"Vacancies have been difficult to fill due to the requirement to try and train staff in what is a complex area of nursing. Normally when staffing is at a sufficient level, staff rotate specialities, gaining more knowledge and skills in a variety of different areas and subsequently building more resilience into the service."
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 hereComments are closed on this article