A council has been criticised for cruel plans to introduce a ‘tourist tax’ that could see expectant mothers charged when they have to journey to hospital from remote areas to give birth.
Patients in northern Scotland must travel hundreds of miles for hospital care.
Pregnant mothers living in Caithness, where local services have been drastically trimmed, have to travel to Inverness to give birth at Raigmore Hospital – more than 100 miles from the main Caithness towns of Wick and Thurso.
They will also be affected by the Highland Council’s proposal to introduce a levy on overnight visitors from autumn next year.
The hope is that the plan will raise £10 million a year for the local authority, but health campaigners say it is common for heavily pregnant women to travel 100 miles south in the days leading up to their due date.
Hotel stays prior to hospital appointments will incur additional costs.
However, cruise ship passengers and those exploring the Highlands in motorhomes will be exempt.
The Caithness Health Action Team (CHAT) has sent a report on the breach of their right to healthcare to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in Geneva.
Iain Gregory, of the Caithness Health Action Team, told The Telegraph it is an ‘incredible lack of humanity’ for pregnant mothers to face such a levy.
He said: ‘A woman who is forced to undergo this journey, and who wishes to stay in a hotel or B&B for a day or so before her confinement, will be taxed along with her unborn baby.
‘It will also apply to the thousands of other Caithness residents who require to travel south for medical treatment.’
The move comes after a report by the Scottish Human Rights Commission discovered that mothers in Caithness and Sutherland felt ‘unsafe’ and ‘terrified’ about going to Raigmore to have their babies.
CHAT says that other patients from Caithness are also denied their rights to ‘accessible and adequate facilities’.
Its proposal states that access to the NHS for people living in Caithness ‘has been substantially curtailed over recent years with maternity care suffering particularly badly’.
It adds: ‘Citizens face disenfranchisement, and are unable to enjoy their basic human rights in relation to medical care.’
The consultant-led maternity unit at Caithness General Hospital was downgraded in 2016 to a midwife-led facility and the vast preponderance of local women now give birth in Inverness.
CHAT vice-chairman Mr Gregory said: ‘CHAT has been convinced for some time that the present situation facing mums-to-be, and indeed many other patients who are required to undergo the 200-mile-plus round trip to Raigmore, at all times of the day and night, sometimes in seriously dangerous weather conditions, and often in pain and distress, simply had to amount to a breach of their human rights.’
The campaigners hope the CESCR will respond to its report and put pressure on the Scottish Government and NHS Highland to improve local services.
The changes it wants include having Caithness’ midwife maternity unit led by a consultant to allow more women to give birth there.
It is anticipated that the UN will take up the issue in the upcoming year.
The CESCR is a UN body that monitors how countries enforce human rights such as the right to the best standard of health.
Governments who are signed up to it, including those in the UK, are supposed to follow any recommendations it makes.
Mr Gregory added: ‘CHAT has been campaigning for many years now, yet we still await action.
‘We hope now that we may, at last, ensure that our case is recognised and upheld and that the state, who are ultimately responsible, will be called upon to act.’
A spokesman for NHS Highland said: ‘We appreciate the unique challenges that are faced by people in remote, rural and island areas and in providing safe and effective services as close to home as possible.
‘There are regular consultant clinics in Caithness and we have successfully increased the midwifery team there.
‘We are currently looking at developing some specialist nursing roles for Caithness to add resilience to the service.’
I can see why foreign tourists should be required to pay, but they should also get insurance to cover any medical expenses they may incur while travelling, but locals should not be required to do so!
Nobody from abroad should be allowed free treatment on the NHS, regardless of who they are and where they come from. That’s why it’s called insurance, not an assurance that they will get everything for free.
Yet thousands arrive on our shores and we give them free treatment, among other things.
Very few things in this life are free, and generally when it is offered for free, usually someone else is paying for it – in this case the taxpayer!
Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table at which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes are the rule.
Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts anyway!
Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries tax his tears.
Tax his car, Tax his fuel, Find other ways to tax his (censored).
Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the soil in which he lays
Put these words Upon his tomb, ‘Taxes drove me to my doom…’
When he’s gone, Do not relax, It’s time to apply the inheritance tax.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 