A recruitment emergency in the Highland health service has left patients in Nairn and Ardersier waiting three days for even a telephone consultation.
The frustration over non-emergency advice has prompted one patient to take to a social network to air her concern.
NHS Highland has made clear at a public meeting in Nairn that the problem is nationwide and not confined to Nairnshire.
The recruitment issue was raised with board representatives at a meeting of the newly constituted Nairn and Ardersier Patients Group (NAPG) which was established to help improve local health services and lines of communication to health chiefs.
More than a dozen people attended Tuesday’s meeting.
Local businesswoman Naomi Campbell, who sent out an SOS, said: “They can’t recruit people. It’s the same at Raigmore where they can’t get enough consultants and stenographers. In Nairn, they can’t get enough GPs and it’s frustrating.
“Over the past two or three years you’d have a standard two to three-week wait for an appointment. You had the telephone appointments system to fall back on and you usually got a telephone appointment within 24 hours.
“Now, it’s three days which, for a telephone appointment, is getting a bit silly because you can’t plan when you’re going to be ill.”
NAPG chairwoman Sue Hood, who worked in the health service for more than 30 years latterly managing clinical audit, said: “A question was asked of the NHS Highland representatives about the staffing level and we were told they are conbsidreed to be reasonably well staffed.
“On the downside, more and more people are using services and recruitment in all of Scotland is quite difficult. Individuals will have poor experiences occasionally, which is regrettable.
“There are always problems because you have a system that hasn’t got infinite capacity but has infinite demand. Getting your quart out of your pint bottle is difficult all round, I can see both sides of this.”
Mrs Hood added that she was keen to hear from patients with issues that should be brought to the board’s attention.
A spokeswoman for NHS Highland said: “Patients can speak to a duty GP or a nurse on the day they phone up.
“If they wish to speak to a particular GP or nurse there may be a wait for a few days as the GP or nurse may not be available because they may have been on call the night before, working on the hospital ward or performing other duties such as clinics or working in A&E.”