Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has attacked the SNP government on its failure to meet cancer waiting times since 2012.
At First Minister's Questions Sarwar said that cancer services needed to be fully restarted while the country slowly exits from the naton-wide coronavirus lockdown.
Nicola Sturgeon in responses said the NHS had coped well during the pandemic and was focused on catch-up on vital services that had been affected due to the pandemic.
Sarwar accused the SNP of failing to meet the 62-day waiting time for the entire time that Sturgeon was in power.
He said: "This government hasn't met the 62-day cancer waiting time since 2012, that's nine years.
"Nicola Sturgeon has failed to meet this target for the entire time she has been First Minister.
"Doesn't that show that we can't come through COVID and go back to the old arguments.
"Instead we in this parliament should focus on what unites us as a country, rather than what divides us.
"The focus of this Parliament should be a recovery and a catch up plan for our NHS so that we never again, never again, have to choose between treating a virus or treating cancer."
Sturgeon replied by saying she understood the concerns about cancer waiting times in Scotland.
She said: "We have recognised for a long time there is more to do to meet targets and reduce waiting times further.
"Covid has been undoubtedly a serious problem because of the pause in many normal aspects of the NHS that it has necessitated.
"That is why through investment we reformed how treatments are being delivered. We are no focused on getting the NHS back to normal.
"I hope none of us ever have to face the reality that we face over the last year again.
"I think our NHS has coped admirably with that but the focus now is getting the NHS back to the point it is dealing with whatever Covid still throws at us but is recovering and seeing the patients who have had treatments delayed."
She spoke as the latest Covid-19 figures show 22 deaths from the virus and 591 positive tests were recorded in the past 24 hours.
It brings the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 7,483.
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