Kidney patient reveals travel woe

NHS Orkney has advertised for nurses who use dialysis treatment

A grandmother from Orkney faces "a horrible" 500-mile trip every week to a kidney unit for dialysis treatment because she cannot be treated at home.

Marion Laird, 62, travels to Aberdeen with four other kidney patients because there are no nurses on the islands trained to use dialysis treatment.

NHS Orkney, which pays the £300 cost of her flights, has advertised for two nurses to ease their plight.

Mrs Laird said she missed her family and felt like a lodger in the hospital.

In the last 12 months, Mrs Laird has travelled 26,000 miles to the mainland for the life-saving treatment.

It is just horrible, I want to be home with my family but I can't. Marion Laird

Her husband, Billy, 64, drives her 18 miles from their farm at Dounby to the island's airport every Tuesday morning and she returns home on Saturday afternoon.

Mrs Laird said the travelling was taking its toll on her family and she missed her two grandsons, John, six, and five-year-old Jake.

"It is just horrible, I want to be home with my family but I can't. I am like a lodger in the hospital," she said.

'Nothing we can do'

Her husband has set up a special room in their home where she could be treated but it lies empty because there are no trained nurses.

Mrs Laird began suffering kidney problems in 2000 as the result of side-effects from taking long-term medication for another ailment.

In 2002, she got help from her husband, who trained in Aberdeen to use a home peritoneal dialysis unit.

However, in June last year doctors said Mrs Laird needed more complicated haemodialysis and this meant travelling to the mainland.

Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where Mrs Laird receives specialist treatment

"There is nothing we can do," Mr Laird said.

"We are hoping someone will come forward to fill the posts very soon. But what can we do but wait?"

Mr Laird said the family was keeping the pressure on the health board to resolve the situation.

"It would obviously rather not pay for the £300 flights and it is keen to get trained nurses," he said.

"But it's taken so long and it's been such an upheaval for Marion and the family. We hardly ever see her."

An Orkney Kidney Patients' Association has been formed to campaign for improvements and has already raised £8,000 to train new nurses.

Chairman Richard Shoesmith said: "All over Scotland renal services are stretched.

"Marion is one of many people who must travel miles for treatment because there are no facilities here."