Feuding NHS bosses and staff risk plunging Dundee healthcare into “crisis”, according to one of the country’s leading voices on health matters.
Former MSP and retired executive director of the Scotland Patients’ Association, Dr Jean Turner, believes “indefinite strike” action by hospital porters will endanger patient safety and cripple services.
She has urged both staff and employers to submit to “a truly independent review” of wages in a bid to end weeks of industrial action before chaos ensues.
Dr Turner told The Courier patients, staff and their families would all suffer greatly if the strike goes ahead and said swift independent mediation must take place urgently.
She cautioned that its impact would be felt throughout the hospitals, where hundreds of staff have already been forced to set aside their day-to-day jobs to cover a variety of portering duties.
“There must be urgent and impartial mediation to resolve this crisis because make no mistake, it is a crisis,” she said.
A compromise appears distant, however, with NHS Tayside accusing Unite of running scared of an independent review.
In response, the union which claims it has twice offered to take part in such a review and been rebuffed claims the health board hopes to preside over a “whitewash”.
Should the stalemate continue, Unite chiefs will lead 117 porters at Ninewells and Royal Victoria hospitals out of work on Tuesday.
No date has been set for the return of the employees, whose duties have been described as “vital” to the running of the hospitals.