‘Someone might die’ – residents fear worst over change in medical care

Published on Saturday 21 January 2012 00:18

Life in the remote wilderness of the Ardnamurchan peninsula is hard enough without worrying about the provision of health care. But the imminent retiral of a district nurse in the village of Kilchoan has led to Ardnamurchan residents demanding a meeting with the health secretary Nicola Sturgeon to discuss fears that their medical care is about to be downgraded.

The retiral of Jessie Colquhoun after years of dedicated service to the community will lead to a reorganisation of medical cover, which residents claim could cost lives. Rosie Curtis, a local mother and leader of the West Ardnamurchan Community Council, is to make the long journey to Edinburgh to meet with Ms Sturgeon next month.

For more than 100 years, West Ardnamurchan and its 250 inhabitants scattered across the windswept countryside in tiny hamlets and strings of cottages have been well served by district nurses.

But the retirement of Ms Colquhoun on 20 February will see the end of a system that has seen two highly versatile district nurses responsible for community nursing, attending NHS24 referrals and being first to the scene on 999 calls.

When Ms Colquhoun retires, her district nurse colleague Carolyn Ellis will be transferred to NHS Highland’s West Lochaber Team.

Under that arrangement, Ms Ellis will cover a far larger area stretching from Mallaig to Lochaline – a journey that takes around four hours. Ms Colquhoun’s replacement will also be allocated to the West Lochaber Team, which is run from Fort William, a couple of hours drive from Kilchoan.

According to the community council, under the new system, district nurses will only respond to 999 calls during the day, because they will not work out-of-hours. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the nearest GP practice – an hour away in the village of Acharacle – has indicated that it intends to stop providing cover between 6pm-8pm, at weekends and on Bank Holidays.

Yesterday, Ms Curtis said: “In the future, if something were to happen out-of-hours and the ambulance has to come from Strontian then it would take an hour to get here. If there was nobody with the right professional qualifications around to deal with it, someone might die before the ambulance arrives. It is as simple and brutal as that.”

Jon Haylett, a writer who has settled in this barren yet beautiful landscape on the most westerly outcrop of mainland Britain, is another who is fighting the proposals by NHS Highland.

Mr Haylett said that the Kilchoan-based district nurses were called out round the clock and were always at the scene within 15 minutes of an emergency happening.

They also do home visits, dispense prescriptions, take blood and attend GP surgeries on behalf of their patients. But it was their swift response to unexpected disasters that the community was particularly grateful for.

“When you think about what these two nurses have been faced with over the years, there are people here who owe their lives to them. There is absolutely no question that this could be the difference between life and death. This is why we are so angry,” Mr Haylett said.

Last night, a spokeswoman for NHS Highland said: “The current arrangement for providing emergency and urgent care is heavily reliant on an immediate response provided by two community nurses working 24/7 and 365 days a year. This cannot continue in the future.

“The emergency responder model that is being proposed forms part of the wider delivery of out-of-hours and emergency services within West Ardnamurchan.

“It would deliver early intervention, backed up by a range of specialist resources, including the emergency retrieval service. It would also guarantee an immediate response to local emergency situations while not being person-dependant.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman confirmed that Ms Sturgeon would be meeting with Ardnamurchan representatives. She said: “It is for NHS Highland and the Scottish Ambulance Service to reach a local solution that meets the needs of that community.”

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TimSteel

Monday, January 23, 2012 at 01:58 AM

An hour from Strontian?Only on a good day, and assuming the ambulane is on station in Strontian, and not already tackiling an emergency elsewhere! Not in peak summer season with crowded roads, not at night with stray cattle and deer, and certainly not in adverse weather, such as winter, or when the road is blocked, as not infrequently it is, by heavy vehicles off the road. Then there's getting back to Fort William, a minimum of two hours at night. Lets not even mention adverse weather. As someone medically evacuated one summer, after initial treatment with 'dangerous drugs' by Jessie(whose name will be on the dangerous drugs register under this penny pinching arrangement?) I can say, without doubt, that, after a few avoidable deaths, this plan will be revisited, at extra cost. If this is what the Scottish Government means by protecting vulnerable rural communities, I think we can safely say that we are looking at the 21st Century version of Highland Clearances in bureaucratic nonsense like this.At least the Landlords often paid for passage of those forced to move.Will the Scottish Government compensate those of us, inceasingly infirm, who will also have to move?

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kareng

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 03:46 PM

Why are the NHS so caught up in saving money rather than lives. The current District nurse set up has done its job well for many many years . Leave ms Eliss in her current post and give her a new colleague to support what is clearly a safe much needed workable community service. The powers that be should goggle just how remote this place is and look at the travel times needed for emergency services as they propose. Perhaps analysis of the types of emergencies most common in the area along with the risks to life any delay will pose should surely be a priority in relation to these decisions. One would have thought that there are legal duties on the Health board to provide service to a certain standard.

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