Women with abnormal smear test results are having to wait up to seven months for vital tests which could reveal they have cancer.
Anxious patients have been told they cannot get appointments for a diagnostic procedure that determines if they need urgent treatment.
One woman who had cancerous cells detected 20 years ago has been going for yearly smear tests ever since.
The mum of two, who asked not to be identified, was told on Christmas Eve that her latest smear had discovered abnormal cells.
Her initial letter told her she would wait up to eight weeks for a vital colposcopy.
Two weeks later, she was told the waiting time had gone up to 30 weeks. The woman, 55, from Dunbartonshire, said: “I can’t believe they are asking us to wait up to seven months when something is already showing up as being wrong.
“To ask any woman to wait seven months with that hanging over her head is dreadful.”
She was widowed 13 years ago and she worries her two children, aged 17 and 23, will be left parentless as a result of the delay.
She said: “My children have already lost without having to worry about me as well.”
Jackie Baillie, the woman’s MSP and Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman, said: ”We all know how important it is to attend for smear tests but to find out that the wait for a follow-up appointment could take seven months is extremely concerning. It is causing people to panic.”
A spokeswoman from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: “We very much regret that we have longer than usual waiting times as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman insisted: “While we cannot comment on individual patients, we are clear that health boards must prioritise patients who are referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer and ensure they are seen within the waiting time guarantee of two weeks.”
