'Our human rights are being breached' - campaigner speaks out on Caithness women's health services

EXCLUSIVE

A Far North campaigner feels the current lack of women's health services in the area is a breach of human rights.

Kirsteen Campbell, from the North Highland Women's Wellbeing hub, is speaking to us as we put the spotlight on the issue this week.

A report is expected soon from the Scottish Human Rights Commission outlining whether the current set up is against basic rights.

Thrumster mum Kirsteen feels this can't come soon enough and hopes the findings will bring change.

We're also hearing from another Far North based women who feels there is a lot of needless suffering and claims a lack of knowledge led to her cancer not being picked up sooner.

READ MORE: Highland mum travelled to Essex to give birth due to 'lack of local services'

READ MORE: Mum feels 'robbed' of first birth after having to travel more than 110 miles to have baby

Skill set before service downgrade was "really good"

Kirsteen first received treatment for endometriosis aged 15 in Wick and had a hysterectomy when she was 26 due to the chronic disease, where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb (uterus) grow in other parts of the body.

The campaigner says that procedure saved her life and has direct experience of what gynecology care has been like before and after services were downgraded in 2016.

She said: "We had such good care here, could never fault it and the skill set was really good to match it.

“I used to have CD-ROMs sent to me from the surgeon after my surgery, and that was back in the early 2000s.

“We’ve got laws in place to protect animals that can’t be transported when they’re pregnant, but women can be.

“There are greater risks for travelling after surgery as well."

Campaigner "sincerely hopes" new report will bring change

Another woman we spoke to feels there is currently a lack of knowledge in Caithness associated with women's health.

Eight years ago, her periods changed dramatically to the point where she started haemorrhaging.

Over the years she says she was given many reasons as to why this may be including it being heavy periods and was told to try losing weight.

Eventually in 2023, what seemed to a prolapsed fibroid turned out to be a sizeable tumour and was given a radical hysterectomy. She feels if this had been picked up earlier, then the cancer could've been dealt with sooner.

Speaking to us anonymously, she said: “Looking back through all my notes, I believe it had been growing for those eight years and if they had picked up initially, it would have been much and simpler and probably treatable without losing everything.

“It was very frustrating because I knew something was wrong for a very long time."

The woman feels there is a lot of needless suffering and claims her oncologist cried with her due to what she had been through.

She added: "I’ve got two friends who have moved away.

“One wanted to expand her family and the other wanted to expand her family, but needed specialist healthcare as well.

“They’re both nearer Glasgow now.”

Last year, a team from the Scottish Human Rights Commission conducted in person research across the North of Scotland, with a report due to be presented to the Scottish Parliament shortly.

Kirsteen is desperately hoping their findings will force change.

“I’m sincerely hoping it will come with great change.

“Our human rights are being breached by the situation here, so we do deserve so much better.

“Every woman, every person deserves so much better than what we’ve got at the moment."

NHS Highland response

NHS Highland have outlined how they talk with women in the far north regularly about healthcare - and are looking at specialist nurses for the region

A spokesperson said: "We are sorry to hear that people have had a poor experience of our services and that people have experienced distress.

"We are always keen to hear from people and would welcome individuals contacting us directly in order to ensure we have a dialogue with them about what happened to them and what we could do differently in the future for them and others.

"We attend the Caithness Health Action Team (CHAT) a group that represent women and families to raise issues, concerns and ideas.

"We meet regularly and implement service improvements - monitoring progress through the CHAT action plan.

"We also have regular meetings with the North Highland Women’s Wellbeing Hub (NHWWH). Health leaders and local women meet to discuss and support taking women’s health services forward.

"In Caithness we provide as many gynaecology procedures as is safe to do so in Caithness General Hospital.

"We have a consultant based in the area and regular visiting consultants from Inverness.

"High risk or complex cases continue to come to Raigmore – this is the same for all our remote and rural areas in the Highland region.

"Theatre lists are planned to support travel for those travelling longer distances and accommodation and expenses are also provided.

"We are currently looking at developing some specialist gynaecology nursing roles for Caithness to add resilience to the service.

"Our consultant lead for gynaecology is also running an endometriosis trial which will look at the care pathway for these patients.

"These are just some of the service developments that we are working with and in discussion with the NHWWH group.

"We appreciate them to bring ideas, concerns and suggestions forward and as a team we work to achieve improvement."