A TRADE union says immediate support is needed for ambulance services in the West Highlands which are ‘threadbare and sometimes nonexistent’.
Unite regional officer Richard Whyte said members in Skye, Fort William and Caithness are becoming increasingly frustrated and concerned about the dangerous practice of routinely putting emergency ambulances onto long patient transfers to Raigmore Hospital.
He explained: ‘There are 400 interhospital transfers between Belford and Raigmore a year – that’s more than one a day. There are 250 a week from Belford, Broadford and Caithness.