A HEALTH board has come under fire after it hired a specialist radiographer months before the long-awaited scanner she was hired to operate was up and running.
NHS Orkney is the only health board in Scotland that does not have its own CT scanner, with patients instead facing a trip to Aberdeen or occasionally Shetland to be examined using one of the devices. For non-emergency patients in the outer Orkney isle the trip can take three days due to poor transport links.
Following a long campaign the health board has committed to establishing a CT scanning service on the islands and a lead CT radiographer is already in post on a salary of up to £40,000 per year plus "distant islands allowance".
However, building work to accommodate and install the new CT scanner, which creates more detailed images of internal organs, blood vessels and bones than a standard X-ray, has only just begun and is expected to take at least five months.
NHS Orkney said it was "vital" that the staff member was in post "to answer questions" while the work progressed. She is also providing cover for a vacant non-specialist post in the department, the health board said.
But Conservative Highlands and Islands MSP Mary Scanlon said it was "ludicrous" that everything but the scanner, which she said could save lives, was in place.
"The NHS is supposed to be about equal access for all patients to healthcare, regardless of where they live," she said. "For too long that has not been the case in Orkney, and patients are left in a totally unacceptable situation where they have to be helicoptered to Aberdeen, or get the overnight ferry there."
In 2008 the Scottish Government said that all rural general hospitals should have advanced imaging, such as CT scanning, available.
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