Daughter's cancer diagnosis exposed pressures on NHS

An Edinburgh Lib Dem candidate has told how her six-year-old daughter's cancer diagnosis highlighted the "immense pressures" Scotland's NHS is under.

- by Ian Swanson

Edinburgh Northern Lib Dem candidate Sanne Dijkstra-Downie said cost-cutting was 'obvious everywhere' during her daughter's time in hospital

City councillor Sanne Dijkstra-Downie, who is standing in Edinburgh Northern in the Scottish Parliament elections next May, said cost-cutting was "obvious everywhere" and the care of child patients, such as feeding and washing, relied heavily on parents. Speaking at the Scottish Lib Dem conference in Glasgow at the weekend, she said: "My kids mean the world to me. And when one of them was diagnosed with cancer, at the age of six, that world turned on its head in an instant.