A 73-year-old woman waited more than four hours “in agony” with a broken hip, eventually giving up hope of an ambulance and taking a taxi to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
The pensioner’s experience was put to Nicola Sturgeon at Holyrood as she came under sustained pressure to address major problems with health service performance.
The example was among a harrowing number of personal stories shared with the first minister ahead of an expected difficult winter for the NHS.
The pensioner’s husband, a 78-year-old man who lives in the suburbs of Aberdeen, said his wife tripped on the doorstep to their house and fell on to the path.
He and some neighbours managed to lift her into the house after about an hour but she was in a “state of shock and a great deal of pain because she had broken her hip”.
The man, who did not want to be named, said: “The wait for an ambulance was extremely long and, after about four hours, as we were getting pretty desperate, we decided to call a taxi to get her to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary quicker.
“It was a disabled taxi with a ramp but, even so, it was far from ideal, as she was sitting on her hip and it was an extremely bumpy ride.
“Nonetheless, we made the right decision because an ambulance driver I spoke to at the hospital told me there was a patient who had been waiting for three hours in one of the several ambulances outside the hospital to be admitted to A&E.”
Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Tories, revealed the hip-break experience in a 20-minute grilling for the first minister.
He also raised a Press and Journal report which laid bare the scale of the accident and emergency crisis at NHS Grampian.
It showed ambulance turnaround times at ARI are now at a record high.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, Mr Ross said: “A line in this email we both received said: ‘She endured even more severe pain getting into the taxi but by this time we were getting desperate’.
“First minister, the email also says that your government should, and I quote him, hang your heads in shame.”
The first minister said the man was “absolutely right that experiences like that are not acceptable and nobody will ever hear me say otherwise”.
But she said the health service – including the Scottish Ambulance Service – is facing “the most extreme pressure that most of us can ever remember”.
Ms Sturgeon told MSPs that her government had made “record investment” in the NHS as she highlighted Scotland’s A&E performance “remains the best in the UK”.
Ambulance service responds
A Scottish Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “Hospital turnaround times continue to be a challenge across Scotland, which is impacting on our response times in reaching patients.
“However, our latest statistics show our median response time for our most serious calls across the country is currently 7 minutes 16 seconds and that 30-day survival rates for our most seriously ill patients are at their highest ever level.
“We’re working alongside our colleagues at NHS Boards, including NHS Grampian, to reduce wait times for ambulances through joint escalation plans, and by increasing alternative care pathways for ambulance clinicians to support patients in the community.”