SCOTTISH Labour leader Kezia Dugdale yesterday missed her party’s national campaign day on saving the NHS after jetting out to America.
The MSP went on an unpublicised trip at the same time as her colleagues across the country spoke to voters and manned stalls.
Labour has for months been warning about the challenges facing the NHS, including budget cuts, staffing shortages and missed waiting times.
Audit Scotland last week confirmed the crisis in the health service in one of its most brutal reports since devolution.
As a way of keeping the spotlight on the NHS, Scottish Labour staged a day of action to highlight the problems, with MSP Anas Sarwar playing a prominent role.
Activists from Dumbarton, Paisley, Aberdeen, Kilsyth, Airdrie, Haddington, Glasgow, Fife, Rutherglen, Moffat and Edinburgh posted their activity online.
At 9 o’clock yesterday morning, Dugdale tweeted: “All the best to @scottishlabour activists across the country taking to the streets with our #SaveOurNHS campaign.”
However, Dugdale was preparing to fly to the US to carry out phone banking for the Democrats ahead of the presidential election. She is also planning to meet strategists and pollsters with a view to helping reform Labour’s electoral machine.
It is understood she will be back in Holyrood on Wednesday - the middle of the parliamentary week.
One party source complained: “Is Kez leading the party, or is it Anas?”
A second insider questioned what she could offer Hillary Clinton: “Coming third in elections is not exactly an attractive pitch.”
It is the second time Dugdale has gone to America since the summer. In July, she took part in a two-week junket put on by the US State Department.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Tories said: “It’s hard to take Labour’s campaign about the NHS seriously when their leader is jetting off across the Atlantic to campaign in another country’s election.
“In the Scottish Conservatives we will be concentrating all of our efforts on holding the SNP to account and pressuring them to take action to avert the crisis our NHS is facing.”
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “On Thursday, at First Minister’s Questions, Kezia Dugdale put Nicola Sturgeon under real pressure over a decade of NHS mismanagement by the SNP. By highlighting the case of Mr James Neilson, a 77-year old retired miner who has to wait seven months for a consultant appointment, Kez exposed the human cost of SNP failures on the health service.
“Anas Sarwar is doing a great job of highlighting the SNP’s mismanagement of the NHS, including their plans to close vital local services. He has Kez’s full support.
“Kez will be campaigning for Hillary Clinton this weekend. It’s important that people do what they can to stop Donald Trump becoming president. Whilst in the States she will meet with senior Clinton and Obama strategists.”
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