Margaret Watt, chair of Scotland Patients Association, said she had been calling for the introduction of a seven-day regular service in the NHS for the past few years.
She argued that the health service should be no different from other public services which continued to be provided at the weekends.
She said: "It is a service and after all we are the employers. What we should be saying is we want you in line with every other service department. We don't take the buses off and we don't take the trains off over the weekends.
"The service should be spread over seven days, and that would help people who are working when their employers are often most reluctant to release them go for the treatment or to see a doctor.
"I used to work for BT and when it came to public holidays I had to make sure I had cover for the whole seven days.
"We didn't close the telephone exchange for the weekend, we had to put staff on that and make sure the staff worked. So why should the NHS be any different?"
Watt added that extending working hours would help to tackle issues such as waiting lists for patients.
"They have got CT scans there, they have got all the equipment, and with the amount of money we have to pay why should they lie dormant from a Friday until a Monday morning?"
"There is a way of doing duty patterns where you can at least give staff a day off during the week if they are working Saturdays and Sundays.
"We should be able to get extra staff in there and it should be open seven days a week, not five days a week.
"It means we can hopefully get rid of the waiting lists as we can use the scanners, we can use the theatres, and everything else at the weekend.
"People don't wait until Monday and then get sick, it can happen any day of the week."
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