Scotland is facing a crisis in its National Health Service due to Covid and Tory austerity - but Brexit has caused further deadly delays in our hospitals.
Today, in the latest instalment of our Broken Brexit series, the Daily Record reveals the full impact on the service, according to some of the country's leading health experts.
Dr Arianna Andreangeli has examined, in detail, the devastating pressure the split with Europe has placed on health boards across the country.
She contributed to the hugely influential Nuffield Report into the NHS's lack of preparedness for the break from Europe - and her verdict on the impact of Brexit on our health is damning.
In an exclusive interview with the Record, Dr Andreangeli tells how the NHS has further deteriorated since the Nuffield Report was written in 2020.
Access to state-of-the-art treatments in Europe have been denied to patients and, more importantly, the NHS in Scotland is now facing a recruitment crisis as EU nationals who want to work in the UK now face added barriers.
Dr Andreangeli said: "Health services fall within the principle that within the internal market there should be no impediment for services to be provided across borders."
She said many patients had previously travelled to Europe for treatments unavailable in the UK but since Brexit this is no longer an option for people in Scotland who have spent years on waiting lists.
Dr Andreangeli also highlighted the difficulties in attracting foreign staff and experts - men and women who have historically been relied upon to hold our health service together.
She said: "It used to be the case there was no barrier to access the UK jobs market for medical professionals.
"Even though there are exceptions to the rules in relation to visas and immigration for very highly skilled individuals, the process is far more cumbersome.
"I am not surprised that providers are already seeing significant problems in recruiting medical professionals."
Donald Macaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, told how staffing levels in the NHS and the care sectors have been decimated in recent years.
He said: "Brexit has had a profoundly detrimental impact on social care providers.
"The care sector has traditionally always recruited internationally, so much so that just before the Brexit vote we analysed that about 12 per cent of those working in care homes in Scotland were international staff and between six to eight per cent were from Europe."
He said the "complicated process of settled status", combined with workers' desire to return home during the pandemic, led to a "significant deficit in terms of the workforce".
Macaskill added: "Brexit can be held accountable for a significant decline in our workforce and a significant increased challenge in international recruitment."
Another worrying effect of Brexit is the impact on drug supplies to Scotland from elsewhere in the EU.
Dr Andreangeli said: "With the UK leaving the EU the free movement of goods no longer applies."
The approval of new drugs is also expected to be slower in the UK than in the rest of the EU. Dr Emma Law, a leading expert in Alzheimer's, warned how Brexit would delay a groundbreaking drug getting to patients in Scotland.
Lecanemab is the first medicine shown in tests to slow the decline of people with the disease. But the UK won't be part of any EU deal to import it from the US so faces a longer wait for one of its own.
Dr Law, manager of the Scottish Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network, branded Brexit a "disaster for patients".
She said: "Because we're now out of the EU, we will be lower down the list for getting access to a drug like that."
She also told how Brexit has hindered research, adding: "There is not one single researcher who welcomes Brexit. Everybody knew it would cause us problems and it has."
The GMB union also weighed in on issues the NHS is facing after urging its members to vote against Brexit.
Keir Greenaway, the GMB's senior organiser in Scotland, said: "Brexit has been like pouring petrol on the austerity bonfire.
"It has helped further fuel the crisis in public services that have been hammered by politically-driven cuts imposed by Westminster then passed on by Holyrood to health boards, councils and communities. While no-one could have foreseen Covid and its impact, the consequences of leaving the EU were very predictable.
"The reality now is that the NHS is no longer the prospective destination for global health professionals that it once was."
He added: "Gutter politics has decimated the value of staff, the state of infrastructure and the development of the next generation whi le curbing pathways for domestic and international staff to work in the NHS.
"The damage is done and there is no quick fix but the understaffing crisis should prompt political leaders to start valuing our NHS workers properly so we can recruit and retain the people needed to begin a recovery of our broken health and social care sectors."
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