Chamber and committees

Has the Scottish Government assessed the impact that Covid-19 and its resultant isolation have had on people with mobility issues? Are more physiotherapy services needed, particularly for our elderly citizens and those with disabilities, to stop early and preventable admittance to care home settings?

Thank you. I take the opportunity to welcome you to your new role of Deputy Presiding Officer.

It is a huge honour and a privilege to be here in our Scottish Parliament, representing the guid folk of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. It is a wonderful constituency, featuring some of the most beautiful rural and coastal scenery in Scotland. It is also blessed with some of the most tight-knit communities, which show tremendous spirit and ingenuity in the face of many challenges.

The community’s spirit has certainly been to the fore in the past year as we have all grappled with the reality of the pandemic. My heartfelt thanks go to the tireless volunteers from the many social enterprises and community groups throughout the constituency that adapted and responded with hard graft to ensure that their fellow residents were fed and supported in the darkest of days.

I take a moment to thank my predecessor, the wonderful and tireless Jeane Freeman. I share the feelings of our new Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care as I seek to fill the big shoes that she has left behind, with a wee bit of trepidation and a whole lot of awe.

I thank my hardworking election agent, Paul Cairns, and the entire team, who, on election day, dealt with a freak snowstorm in Muirkirk and a hailstorm like no other in Catrine. I had hailstones down my boots for the rest of the day. I also thank the thousands of people in Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley who ventured out to cast their votes. I take my responsibility as their representative in the Parliament very seriously and I will work hard for them every day.

My whole working life has been one of seeking to address inequalities and of championing social justice, including spending a decade as a women’s aid worker. For that reason, I was delighted to see that the First Minister has included a minister for women’s health in her ministerial team. Women and girls face significant barriers to good mental and physical health. I am confident that having a minister to take forward the considerable work of the women’s health group and the women’s health plan will mean that, as a country, we will finally see an end to women’s health inequalities.

For too many years, policy creation and research parameters have sidelined the wellbeing needs of women and girls. Many illnesses affect women significantly differently from men. For example, heart conditions and strokes present themselves entirely differently in women, yet many women—and, indeed, their doctors—often miss the signs of serious illnesses that, left untreated, can be catastrophic.

We need to be aware of how intersectionality affects women’s health inequalities. Women from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, including Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers, have a much higher incidence of maternal and neonatal death, and lesbian and bisexual women experience a much higher rate of breast cancer.

As I know from my working life, domestic abuse is a high risk factor for depression, substance abuse and a host of physical disorders. The many women whom I supported in refuge carried with them decades of unmet mental and physical health needs.

Neurodiversity also presents itself very differently in young girls, who are often grown women before somebody finally diagnoses their autism spectrum disorder or their attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. That can mean that the already fraught teenage years can become almost unbearable for girls who have no diagnosis, nor the tools that they need to enable them to live their best lives. I have direct experience of that and I have seen at first hand how easily recognised signs and symptoms can be missed if we are always seeking to see the male version of a condition.

As part of our NHS recovery plan, I welcome the creation of the new early cancer diagnostic centre in Ayrshire that is set to open imminently. We lost my mum at only 58, a few years ago, to a late diagnosis of lung cancer. Like many women, she put her symptoms down to being tired because of her caring responsibilities for my gran, who had dementia, and she put her worries to the back of her mind, with devastating consequences. Like others who have spoken, I record my sincere thanks to the staff nurses at Crosshouse hospital who looked after my mother in those short few weeks.

The pandemic has laid bare and shone a light on inequalities, and it is only right that our health recovery plan seeks to address them. I look forward to seeing how our newly acquired East Ayrshire community hospital in my constituency plays a valuable role in that. [Applause.]

made a solemn affirmation and repeated it in Canadian French.