NO nursing staff are refusing to work with Covid-19 patients across Scotland as a result of a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), says Jeane Freeman.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has piled more pressure on ministers after it urged members to refuse to treat patients as a "last resort" if adequate protection was not provided.
Guidelines from the RCN reportedly told nurses: "Ultimately, if you have exhausted all other measures to reduce the risk and you have not been given appropriate PPE in line with the UK Infection Prevention and Control guidance, you are entitled to refuse to work."
Freeman's statement came after she announced another 24 people with coronavirus have died in Scotland, taking the total number of confirmed deaths to 566.
She said: "We do not have nursing staff at this point, refusing to treat coronavirus patients and as I said, every effort is going into making sure that they are never placed in a situation where they do not have the PPE they need.
READ MORE: Coronavirus: UK death toll passes 10,000 – with 50% mortality rate in hospitals
"As a former nurse myself, I know that that would be the last decision that you would ever want to take.
"So our job is to make sure that they're never in that situation, and that we work really hard every single day to ensure that we secure the supply of PP that our nursing staff, our medics and our care-at-home and social care staff need to do the job that is so important and that they're doing right now."
She added: "Our focus is to make sure that no one in our health or social care professions are ever put in a place where that is the kind of decision that they consider taking.
"It matters very much to me that our health and social care workforce have all the items that they need."
The Scottish Government's figures revealed that 31,114 tests have now been carried out across Scotland, which is an additional 1,211 tests in the past 24 hours.
A total of 5,912 people have tested positive for the virus.
Scotland is in lockdown. Shops are closing and newspaper sales are falling fast. It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of The National is at stake. Please consider supporting us through this with a digital subscription from just £2 for 2 months by following this link: http://www.thenational.scot/subscribe. Thanks – and stay safe.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here