Scottish Greens call for clarity on COVID19 strategy
The Scottish Greens have called on the Scottish Government to provide clarity on its COVID19 strategy.
In a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Scottish Greens Parliamentary Co-Leader Alison Johnstone MSP highlighted a series of concerns around the testing of emergency workers, the supply of personal protective equipment and the procurement of ventilators, issues Ms Johnstone claims the government must address urgently.
Commenting, Alison Johnstone MSP said:
“The COVID19 crisis is having an unprecedented impact on all aspects of life and it clearly presents significant challenges for government. However, the Scottish Government must be clear about exactly what its strategy is and what impact this will have.
“For weeks now, we’ve been told that testing will be ramped up. There has not yet been a significant increase and emergency workers are still not being regularly tested. This means that we have frontline emergency staff self-isolating when they don’t need to, exacerbating the pressure on already overburdened workers. We need to know when this testing will happen.
“The First Minister has told us that there is enough personal protective equipment. We’re told that millions of pieces of ppe. have arrived in recent weeks. It is of little comfort to frontline workers to know that the gloves, goggles or aprons that they need to safely do their jobs are sitting in a factory. We need to get this equipment to frontline workers now. The government has failed to explain how it will do this.
“The Scottish Government must be clear on exactly what it is doing to procure more ventilators. We know we don’t currently have enough. We’ve been told orders have been placed but we’ve been given no detail other than that. There is talk of taking part in UK procurement processes but again there is no detail. We need to know whether current efforts will secure enough ventilators for the expected peak.
“Scottish Ministers must be clear on the scale of the challenge and provide detail on exactly what they are doing in response. Scrutiny cannot and will not simply stop because parliament is unable to sit as regularly as usual.”