Rhoda Grant: Travel costs an issue for NHS visits
The Highlands and Islands Labour MSP on a growing need for patients to travel for treatment.
This month has been a busy one both in parliament and personally. Both myself and my husband, after two years, finally caught coronavirus. Thankfully it was a mild dose so with the help from technology I was able to continue working.
I have been contacted by several constituents who have struggled to meet the costs of travelling to and from hospital appointments. As cuts are being made to NHS services, people are increasingly having to travel to Inverness, Aberdeen and Glasgow for treatment that should be available locally. The Scottish Government’s centralisation agenda places a financial burden on people needing healthcare.
Rising costs mean that the expense of an overnight stay is soaring, and patient reimbursement schemes were last looked at on a national level in 1996. I have written to Scottish Government numerous times asking them to review the rates in the patient travel scheme and have consistently been told that NHS health boards can increase the rates any time they want and at their own discretion and from their own budgets. But without any additional money coming from Scottish Government this would mean a cut to health care funding making matters worse.
At a time when people are facing some of the scariest and most challenging of circumstances – and having to be away from home while they do so – then the least Scottish Government can do is ensure that patients are not so significantly out of pocket that it plunges them into debt.
I was shocked to hear that the cabinet secretary for health has not yet met with health campaigners in Caithness to discuss maternity services after he said in parliament on March 30 that he planned to.
As many of you will remember, I wrote to him at the time and urged him to travel to Caithness to meet the community face-to-face as there are a range of other issues to be tackled too including mental health and women’s health.
I have since tabled a question in the Scottish Parliament asking when will he meet CHAT in the hope this will pressure him to put a date in his diary.
Currently, the Scottish Government are holding a consultation on increasing mother and baby units (MBU) in Scotland. These in-patient units provide specialist perinatal mental healthcare where mother and baby can be together in the first years after birth. Currently there are only two in Scotland and both are in the central belt.
I would be delighted to see a MBU in the Highlands and Islands serving those who live in rural and remote areas including the islands and Moray.
