Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 11 November 2020
Given the excellent speeches that we have heard, I propose to keep my speech relatively short.
I always judge leaders on whether they would take the same risks as they ask people to take on their behalf. That is the mark of a good leader, and it is how I judge the difference between a good leader and a bad leader. The reality is that patient-facing health workers were three times more likely than any other working-age adults in Scotland to be admitted to hospital with Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. We know that the risk of transmission is greater for health workers, so we must do everything that we can to reduce that risk.
Routine and reliable testing is a vital layer of protection that promises not only to limit the spread of the virus, but to protect the people who are protecting us. We simply cannot afford to have Covid outbreaks in our national health service, because it means that scheduled elective surgeries and other treatments have to be suspended. For example, we cannot afford an increase on the 4,355 operations that have been cancelled in NHS Highland in the past six months alone.
The SNP Government must ensure that all front-line health staff are given the urgent support, including routine testing, that will ensure that operations continue. That routine testing must also be rolled out to care home workers, as it is being, and to care-at-home workers. It is not just personal protective equipment that they need to protect themselves and the people whom they care for from the pandemic; they also need testing.
I want to give members an example that was given to me by a care-at-home worker. Imagine, for a moment, what it must be like to be a care worker who looks after an elderly lady who suffers from dementia and requires help going to the toilet, but who rails against her care workers as they get her undressed because she does not understand why they are doing it. In that moment of drama, which happens in the morning and in the evening, the care worker’s PPE is accidentally ripped off, so there could be transmission of the virus, either to the lady who is being looked after or to the care worker, and one of those people might well die as a result of it. The care worker might not know that they have been infected until the weekly test is completed—that is, if it happens at all.
Let us not forget that the SNP Government has never met its pledge on testing. Our care workers should not be put in that position and the Government must ensure that routine testing is made available to all care-at-home workers, whether it is done by the NHS or privately. It is not fair to ask private companies and employees to pay for testing over and above the routine testing that they are given.
We are now in the second wave of the pandemic. I believe that the Scottish Government has a huge duty to protect all our healthcare professionals, care workers and care-at-home workers from the pandemic. It cannot carry out that duty if there is no roll-out of routine testing. My simple message to the Government is that it should stop the warm words and the good public relations and instead get on with doing what we know is the right thing to do.
16:15