An expert in chronic pain has said shock figures which revealed three people had died before accessing treatment are just a small part of a grim picture.
The Press and Journal revealed this month that patients in Grampian were waiting far longer for treatment than elsewhere in the country.
In the north-east the average waiting time is 42 weeks – more than double the second-highest, Ayrshire and Arran, at 21.
But campaigners say the figures do not yet take into account patients who have already entered the system and have had several appointments.
Former Glasgow MSP Dorothy Grace-Elder is the secretary of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on chronic pain.
She said the true extent of the waiting list problem in the region has yet to be fully measured as the statistics for long-term return patients were not published.
“You’re not seeing the full picture because they are only now collecting figures for long-term patients,” she said.
“These are the patients in the most danger, these are the patients that are reporting suicidal feelings.
“Some people in Grampian have told us that they are waiting between 18 months to two years for treatment.
“The suffering of people with chronic conditions is simply dreadful.”
The statistics revealed that among patients who have yet to be seen at the pain clinic in Aberdeen, 54% have been waiting longer than the Scottish Government’s target 18 weeks.
And a whopping 83% who have been seen have waited longer than 18 weeks for further appointments.
