No one should have to wait almost a year to find out if they have cancer. But that’s the appalling state of affairs facing one mum who underwent a smear test in February last year.
She’s been waiting ever since for a follow-up appointment for a colposcopy to determine whether there are early stages of cancer. The average wait for the procedure across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is 19 weeks while the target is just six.
The longest recorded wait is currently 48 weeks. Jackie Baillie, Labour’s health spokeswoman, is right to describe this as a postcode lottery. She points to the example of NHS Lanarkshire where no one has had to wait longer than 10 weeks in six months.
Greater Glasgow and Clyde is the country’s largest health board. It covers many communities where people suffer worse health outcomes due to poverty. It’s simply not fair that some patients are waiting months and months to find out if they require cancer treatment.
It’s a form of mental torture for those involved and their loved ones. It also risks undermining the health service and its long-running campaign for women to get smear tests.
Some will question a system designed to detect cancer at the earliest stage if results can take more than 10 months. We’re told that cancer treatment is always a priority but something has gone badly wrong in this case. The woman whose story we tell here today is owed an apology.
Hardship fuelled by energy rip-off
It is not right for the big oil companies to have made profits of £160billion last year. While so many people around the world have been struggling to make ends meet, the super-wealthy have coined it in.
What is clear is that this money was made at the expense of the rest of us. These companies have benefited from a rise in wholesale energy prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But it is the public who have picked up the tab, so it is only fair that the profits are redistributed. The UK Government should introduce a windfall tax to ensure at least some of those profits are returned to the people.
This much-needed revenue could help reduce household energy costs and improve our public services. During a cost-of-living crisis, the profits made by the big oil companies are simply obscene. We are being ripped off and this Tory Government stand by and do nothing.
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