DAVID STEWART: This was the greatest achievement in the history of the Highlands
Earlier this week I was speaking at the elegant and ornate Culloden House Hotel to the local Probus Group. The subject of my deliberations was the history of the early health service in our area - specifically, the Highlands and Islands Medical Service (HIMS) of 1913.
Following my retirement from the Scottish Parliament in 2021, I spent two years at Edinburgh University studying HIMS, its impact on our area and the ramifications on other nascent health services abroad. In preparing for the presentation, I dusted off an old speech I made in the Scottish Parliament, which included the following: “The establishment of the medical service in 1913 was, in my view, the greatest achievement in the history of the region. Picture the scene - nurses riding pushbikes and motorbikes, cutting across some of the most difficult terrain in the country, and doctors with their sleeves rolled up, putting their strong arms to the oars and moving from one scattered rural population to another, navigating from place to place in simple rowing boats.”
• Sign up for our free newsletters
It would be an oversimplification to see HIMS as a mini-me National Health Service - the service was not free, nor universal and certainly had teething problems after the start of the First World War, where its annual Treasury Grant was eroded by inflation. Any objective observer would, however, applaud its successes - minimum wage for doctors, 100 new Queen’s Nurses, surgeons for Stornoway and Wick and, in 1935, the first air ambulance service was established. By 1948, this service was carrying 275 patients a year across the Highlands and Islands.
When the Atlee Labour government established the NHS in 1948, HIMS had been running for 35 years. The rest of the UK was able to learn from its successes in communities across the north. As Labour health minister Nye Bevan said in the House of Commons: “Illness was not an indulgence for which patients should pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised.”
The early pioneers of 1913 deserve our praise, admiration and recognition. Not for the first time, the Highlands and Islands provided inspiration and leadership, with a philosophy in health that it is better to light one candle than forever curse the darkness. My take on it is that HIMS influenced the shape and form of the Scottish legislation in 1947, which formed the NHS north of the border in 1948. Moreover, HIMS led to knowledge transfer that saw health services in Kentucky and Newfoundland established, based on the Highland health experience. A proud heritage indeed!
Insurance company woes
Do you ever have that sinking feeling when you have to phone or email large organisations, such as utility companies, insurance organisations or government? Let me tell you our problem.
We recently had to change the date of flights home due to an unexpected illness. British Airways did change the flights but there was an exorbitant additional fee for doing so. Not to worry (we thought!) we had paid for a good travel insurance policy and this was clearly an eligible claim.
However, trying to process that claim is, to use Sir Winston Churchill’s line about Russia, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”!
From what seems like hours holding on the phone, listening to inane music, to having the claim being terminated in front of your eyes for no apparent reason, the frustration mounts by the minute. Once I had assembled all the requisite documents (more than was required for buying our house and car combined) it turned out to be impossible to upload them to the insurance company’s website. Another large chunk of time singing along to the inane music followed.
The day was saved only when their call centre staff, having tried unsuccessfully as well, offered a special email address to which I could send the documents. I was left wondering if I could take out an insurance policy that I would not have to deal with this insurance company again!
