A row broke out last night between a senior UK Government minister and Scotland’s only Ukip MEP over who was to blame for NHS Grampian staff shortages.
Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael claimed the troubled health board was having difficultly recruiting consultants and other top doctors because of anti-immigration rhetoric.
The Orkney and Shetland Liberal Democrat MP said Ukip and right wing Conservatives had made people feel they were not welcome in Scotland.
The claim was dismissed by Ukip MEP David Coburn, who said successive UK Governments were to blame for NHS recruitment difficulties.
He added that Britain should not be trying to “steal” doctors and nurses from “third world countries” and should be training more home grown staff.
Problems have been mounting at the health board since June, when consultants took the unusual step of going 39public with concerns about staff shortages.
Claims from whistle-blowers triggered a major review of standards at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI).
In September, orthopaedic specialist Dr Simon Barker claimed doctors at the hospital were “exhausted” because of shortages.
Figures show that NHS Grampian paid £1,535 for a consultant’s return flight from Jamaica to Aberdeen in June. While there was a similar arrangement in August, when the health board paid more than £2,175 to fly in a consultant from India to cover a weekend shift in accident and emergency.
Bill Howatson quit as chairman of the board on October 14, while chief executive Richard Carey announced he was departing two weeks later.
Mr Carmichael said: “There are about 40,000 doctors currently working in the NHS across the UK who were born outside this country.
“So those in Ukip and on the right of the Conservative Party who think we should withdraw from Europe and sit on our own little archipelago in isolation have got to be called out on this.
“We have to make the positive case for immigration and our NHS could not function without the input of doctors, nurses and other workers who are not British by birth.”
Mr Carmichael claimed Ukip posed a real danger to the NHS due to a the “unhealthy” debate over immigration.
He said the Lib Dems would be doing all they could to ensure Scotland remained the “welcoming place it has always been” between now and the general election in May.
But Mr Coburn said: “The reason there is staff shortages in the NHS is because previous UK governments did not train enough doctors and nurses.
“Why should we be stealing staff from third world countries, who have spent a great deal of money educating them, when we could be producing our own?
“Scotland is a nation that sent doctors and nurses throughout the world so why should we now be the nation importing them?”