THE waiting time for a key surgery has increased by 193% since 2019 in Dumfries and Galloway.
Laparoscopies, a surgery often used for endometriosis, various cancers, and ectopic pregnancies, are becoming harder to get as patients are waiting longer.
Indeed, NHS Dumfries and Galloway reports that the longest completed wait for the surgery was 549 days – over a year and a half.
Dumfries and Galloway is not alone, though; NHS Tayside, NHS Grampian, and NHS Lanarkshire all reported waiting times being over 1000 days.
Commenting on the situation, Carol Mochan MSP, who is Scottish Labour’s Women’s Health spokesperson, said: “Laparoscopies are vital if we are going to get on top of diagnosing cripplingly painful conditions like endometriosis, yet these shocking figures show too many Dumfries and Galloway patients are waiting months in silent agony.”
The information comes from an FOI submitted by Mochan. Since the statistics have been released, she has called on the SNP government to make the surgery more readily available to patients, insisting it should not become a “postcode lottery” for patients.
