A Lochmaben man is backing a call for urgent talks to discuss improving cancer services in the region.
Stuart Roxburgh, 82, is forced to travel to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for check-ups every six months because he can’t access services closer to home.
Mr Roxburgh is supporting MSP Finlay Carson’s request for a meeting with Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf to discuss the difficulties facing patients in Dumfries and Galloway.
He said: “I have to make a 130-mile round trip, pay parking charges at the hospital and sometimes wait for an hour and a half to be seen just for a 10-minute appointment. It’s utterly ridiculous.
“I’m not slating the hospital or staff as they’re first class. They saved my life years ago but it’s a long way to go for a 10-minute appointment.
“This region is getting bigger and bigger and it’s about time we had similar facilities here as in Edinburgh.”
Mr Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, has written to Mr Yousaf this week in a bid to try and resolve the issue where some patients are forced into making a 260-mile round trip to Edinburgh instead of being treated in Glasgow.
The latest move comes after he highlighted the inequalities and serious challenges being encountered by patients during a debate at the Scottish Parliament earlier this month.
In his letter, Mr Carson says: “I write to ask if you have communicated with NHS Dumfries and Galloway Health Board on the need to provide flexible treatment pathways to allow my constituents choice in what they as consider to a route to achieve better outcomes?
“Currently patients are asked to go to Edinburgh which is approximately a 260-mile round trip bypassing the treatment centre in Glasgow, which often would be their treatment centre of choice.”
He added: “Longer travel distances may cause additional stress and anxiety and freedom of choice is necessary to allow for outcome-based decision making.”
Mr Roxburgh, who was born with a disease of the pancreas which caused a slow onset of liver failure, was the 500th liver transplant in Scotland nearly 20 years ago.
Since then, he’s been diagnosed with skin cancer twice and liver cancer.
He said: “After my transplant, two lovely nurses came to dress my wounds every day.
“Those two ladies are now dead after they too were diagnosed with cancer.
“It’s a terrible thing to go through and affects so many people.
“There was no counselling available to me either and sometimes it feels like you’re just left to get on with it.
“I’d definitely support a review of services in Dumfries and Galloway.”
Tuesday’s Standard told how a grieving daughter called for an urgent review of cancer care services after her mum had to endure four-hour round trips from her home in Dalbeattie to Edinburgh “writhing in pain” for treatment that took just 12 minutes.
She described the current situation as “deplorable” and claimed “animals are treated with more dignity and compassion” than patients.
