SNP Ministers must be held to account for the state of the NHS as thousands suffer
The NHS is the most cherished public service throughout the UK.
Health service staff are there for us from the cradle to the grave.
But the NHS is in a bad way and SNP Ministers need to be held to account.
GP services are at breaking point and accident and emergency services are also in crisis.
The hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting for treatment are also suffering.
New figures unearthed by Labour show there have been over 250,000 falls by patients at Scottish hospitals.
Frail people are always at risk of falling but these numbers seem alarmingly high.
The stats raise serious questions about the safety of some of our ageing hospitals.
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Some facilities, such as the Monklands hospital, urgently need to be replaced.
So it was worrying when Health Secretary Neil Gray last year put new NHS building projects on hold.
We do not under-estimate the funding challenges governments across the UK are experiencing.
But almost every part of the NHS is struggling and the buck stops with the Scottish Government.
Senior SNP figures, including the First Minister, have made speeches extolling the virtues of the health service.
They have also made promises that the service will improve.
But the reality is different for patients who are waiting for an operation, or who may be getting treated in an unsafe hospital.
Tangible improvement is long overdue and patient safety must be a priority for Neil Gray.
Gaza death toll
UN charity Unicef estimates that more than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
The scenes of horror that we see on our screens every night are almost unimaginable.
Children in Gaza are also starving as the war between Israel and Hamas shows no sign of abating.
The news that seriously ill or injured children from Gaza will be brought to the UK for medical treatment is to be welcomed.
It is understood the UK Government will allow up to 300 young people to enter the UK to receive free medical care.
This is a compassionate move, but it must also be followed by an immediate ceasefire by Israel.
The loss of life in this horrible conflict has been heartbreaking and an internationally-brokered peace deal must be the goal.
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Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Just imagine, every week, for 13 weeks in a row there was a train crash between Glasgow Central and Paisley Gilmour Street, or Haymarket and Dundee, or anywhere in Scotland for that matter – and the result was 24 deaths. Every week. For 13 weeks. And it is getting worse. What do you think the public response would be? Would we not be demanding that the Scottish Government do something to prevent the mounting loss of life? Would any politician be able to look in the mirror and say 'I am doing my best to prevent this daily and weekly roll-call of death' if the numbers just kept being added too? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A heroin addict lies sprawled on a mattress (Picture: Chris Young) | Universal Images Group via Getty SNP's perverse policies It's all very well saying that people should not get on the train that might take them to an early death, but few if any of those who make that journey expect early death to be the outcome for them. More often than not, people starting out on this journey think it's always going to happens to someone else. By the time they realise they are watching in slow motion their own but sadly inevitable demise, they are often beyond having the capacity to get off that train. They need help. They need to be helped out of their addiction and they need rehabilitation so they don't think one day they can easily have a day trip without any consequences. Currently, instead of trying to improve our drug rehabilitation, the policy of the Scottish Government is quite the reverse; indeed it's perverse. 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