By Lucy Ashton
Jackie Baillie MSP expressed her disappointment as it emerged pensioners from Dumbarton are being given Covid booster appointments in Renfrew.
This is despite there being multiple drop-ins available in Alexandria and Dumbarton within the next month.
One woman who contacted the MSP’s office on behalf of her elderly relative told how his appointment wasn’t until towards the end of April in Renfrew.
However between now and then, drop-in clinics are being held every Sunday at the Concord Centre in Dumbarton. There are also two drop-ins at Alexandria.
In Clydebank and Drumchapel, both a bus or train journey away, there are multiple opportunities for vaccinations between now and the end of the month.
This follows pensioners in Helensburgh being lettered earlier this week with appointments which would have involved a 100-mile round trip and two ferries to get to Dunoon.
Ms Baillie raised the issue with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday who issued an apology for the error which she said was regrettable.
Jackie Baillie, Dumbarton constituency MSP, pictured left, said: “It is so disappointing that just a day after the First Minister stood up in the Chamber and spoke about the success of the vaccination programme and apologised for the error in the Helensburgh area, my office is taking calls from people being sent from Dumbarton to Renfrew for their appointments.
“The spring booster is for people who are aged 75 and over and those who have weakened immune systems. We should not be making them travel for any longer distance than is absolutely necessary.
“To learn that there are multiple drop-ins locally before the appointments people are being sent just makes the situation even worse. This was shambolic at the start of the week and it remains shambolic now.
“The Scottish Government needs to stop apologising and actually act on the many mistakes which have already been made, causing anxiety to people who just want their jab to protect themselves from Covid.”
After all we’ve been through this is just more Scottish Government shambles.
Sturgeon may have apologised and good show to Jackie Baillie for exposing this. But after the apology Sturgeon then went on to spin what an otherwise good job her government do.
The arrogance as we approach an election in May is utterly breathtaking. She’ll be telling us there are no GP waits, ambulances are in over supply, and A and E are being underused.
Ah well at least she and husband Peter found time this week to attend the Royal memorial service in Westminster with, unlike Scotland, not a mask in sight.
It never stops. I got a letter in yesterday telling me to go for my booster on EASTER SUNDAY evening.