PATIENTS, fellow doctors and politicians all came to the defence of Ayr MP, and breast cancer surgeon, Philippa Whitford, after she was criticised for performing life-saving surgery during the Christmas break.

A national newspaper said the MP was “topping up her £74,000 MP’s salary with hospital shifts” while Labour MSP Jackie Baillie said Whitford’s “second job” showed the hypocrisy of the SNP as Pete Wishart had said in February last year that being an MP was the “sole concern” and “only responsibility” of his Westminster colleagues.

Speaking to The National, Whitford said it had never entered her head that providing cover would be a problem, she also said she wouldn’t hesitate to help out again.

“My original plan was to have Christmas with the family but, you know, I have a colleague on maternity and a colleague who was ill and they were really, really short, so when they asked me to do those days, of course I said ‘yes’.

“I’ve done a total of 45 hours in days that were all in recesses – it’s not like I’m on a board of directors, and anyone who watches coverage of Parliament will see I’m here and I go to virtually everything I can get to in the constituency.”

Whitford, who has 33 years’ experience, said she carried out mastectomies and lumpectomies over Christmas, as well as holding clinics with new patients and with people coming back to the hospital to get diagnoses or the results of their surgeries.

The surgeon’s cover for colleagues during the festive break meant there was “minimal disruption to patient clinics and planned surgery”.

Whitford said the story had come out of the blue and she had never tried to keep it secret from media, her party or constituents.

“I was speaking to a broadcast journalist before the recess and he said it would be great and asked if he could come and bring a camera, and I said no , I wouldn’t make a show out of my patients.”

Yesterday, the doctor said she had been overwhelmed by the positive reaction from patients, patients relatives, colleagues and other politicians.

In the House of Commons chamber Tory MP Dr Phillip Lee who practises medicine, encouraged her to “face down … those rather ill-informed external critics in the Scottish Daily Mail”.

In the article Bailie had said ‘The fact that Philippa Whitford, on a lucrative MP’s salary, can still make an hourly rate in our NHS nearly seven times the living wage shows the real problems in our NHS and how understaffed and under-resourced our health service is under the SNP.’

The doctor wished Bailie good luck if she thought she would be able to “recruit senior doctors on the living wage.”

“That’s the salary I was on before, I’m on considerably less now, so the idea of attacking me and saying I’m a money grabbing opportunist just doesn’t add up.”