A chronic pain sufferer who waited nearly a year for a hospital appointment found out it was cancelled just hours before after NHS staff “forgot” to tell him.
Ally Cargill, who lives near Elgin, relies on oxygen cylinders 24 hours a day to survive due to a condition that has caused his lungs to harden.
The 64-year-old was due to go to Dr Gray’s Hospital to meet with a consultant to find new ways to relieve the constant pain he has been living with since 2001.
However, despite waiting 52 weeks for the appointment, the retired painter and decorator only found out the date had been cancelled when his wife, Pat, made a routine check.
Mr Cargill has now been told he has to wait another month in order to see the specialist.
Yesterday, NHS Grampian stressed they only cancelled appointments as a “last resort” while chronic pain specialists remain in short supply.
But Mrs Cargill revealed the couple had only discovered the appointment had been cancelled when they phoned the patient transport service on the morning of the trip to ensure it would have oxygen on board.
She said: “They just told me they wouldn’t be coming because the appointment had been cancelled. It seemed strange to me because we hadn’t been told anything.
“I just phoned the ambulance to double-check everything. If I hadn’t done that then I might still be waiting for it now. I think they just forgot to told us.
“The last I heard from them was they phoned to say he had been waiting for 40 weeks and they were letting us know our place on the waiting list. It’s going to be 56 weeks by the time he’s seen now. It all seems terribly unfair.”
Mr Cargill’s diagnosis with diffused pleural thickening asbestos causes him to feel like he is constantly breathing with cling film wrapped around his chest.
He regularly needs morphine injections to cope with the pain of the relentless stress.
He has been waiting for an appointment at a pain clinic to speak to specialists about a new way of coping with the agony after being referred by his GP.
NHS Grampian has previously been condemned for its “scandalous” attempts to cut chronic pain waiting lists after it emerged just £35,000 from a Scottish Government fund of nearly £5million was spent in the area.
The health authority has stressed it prioritises patients to ensure those with urgent needs are seen ahead of those who need routine care.
Yesterday, Chris Bridgeford, founder of the Affa Sair self help group for sufferers, said: “Clinics get cancelled all the time, it’s a fact of life. People should really be told when it happens though.
“It’s bad enough to be waiting as long as this guy has been but to find out like this that it’ll be longer is poor. It just shows the perilous state Dr Gray’s is in just now.”
Last night, a spokesman for NHS Grampian said: “We only postpone appointments as a last resort. However, we are concerned to hear that this patient was not informed in a timely manner and we’d be keen for him to contact our feedback and complaints team.
“We have been experiencing longer waiting times than we would like with the chronic pain service across Grampian, partly as a result of significant challenges in recruiting enough qualified staff.”