It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
For patients at the rodent-infested Strathmartine Centre it was almost certainly the latter.
A shocking report on Wednesday revealed the Dickensian nightmare of the NHS Tayside facility in Dundee.
Inspectors for the Mental Welfare Commission found mouldy walls, unhygienic toilets, a leaky roof, an ant infestation and a general smell of urine.
This is a facility meant to care for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
The health board has been told it needs to make 13 urgent improvements to the centre.
But it should not have taken an outside body to tell NHS Tayside that their facility was well below the acceptable standard.
The report is damning but perhaps it is should also serve as a stark warning.
This is a mental health facility falling apart amid the crumbling of our public service finances.
Season of darkness amid £500m of cuts
Earlier this month, Scotland’s finance secretary Shona Robison announced cuts of £500m.
Of that, £116m is coming from the health budget, £18.8m from mental health services.
The Dundee MSP doesn’t need to look too far from her own doorstep to see the brutal effects these cuts will have.
These are cuts that will further strain services already at breaking point.
Real people will suffer as a consequence.
They already are.
Robert Hannan lay in agony for four hours waiting on an ambulance to take him to hospital after the 96-year-old fell at his home in Dundee.
Hours of suffering the pain of a broken hip and pelvis bone.
Four hours of waiting for help to arrive.
When he finally reached Ninewells he was told he would need surgery.
£22 billion black hole in public finances
The Scottish Ambulance Service has apologised to Mr Hannan for the distress caused – but the fault doesn’t necessarily lie with them.
The ambulance service has a finite number of vehicles to work with and must direct them to the calls they deem most urgent.
Mr Hannan was simply unfortunate, or fortunate, that his injuries weren’t considered severe enough to warrant a speedier response time.
Essentially, he wasn’t at immediate risk of dying.
Ambulance crews shouldn’t be left in a position where they can’t attend a seriously injured 96-year-old man for hours.
If this is the strain on the service currently, how much worse is it going to get after £500m worth of cuts?
Unfortunately, the answer may be “a lot”.
It’s not just Scotland and our NHS that is in trouble.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has warned that next month’s budget will be “painful”, claiming a £22 billion black hole in the UK’s public finances.
It’s a void that will be filled with wide-ranging cost cutting and axing of services.
It may only be September, but we already seem to be entering the winter of despair.
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