Elgin mum-of-four's cancer shock after going private to end 18-month NHS wait
An Elgin mum-of-four only learned she had cancer after paying around £15,000 to go private when faced with an 18-month wait on the NHS.
Sarah Beaton first visited her GP in June 2024 after suffering from heavy periods.
Following multiple visits to her surgery, she was referred for a scan which she received in January this year.
The results showed there were anomalies. It was initially thought to be a fibroid, which is a benign non-cancerous growth.
But the 43-year-old, who lives just outside of Elgin, was told she would need referred to the gynaecology department at NHS Grampian.
Speaking to the P&J, she said: 'I was told there would be an 18-month waiting list for a consultation with a gynaecologist.
'I wasn't very happy because obviously I've been suffering with it for quite a while, and they said to just carry on with the same tablets until I could get a consultation.'
The GP told her they would probably recommend a hysteroscopy, a test to look inside a woman's womb, to remove the fibroid which should solve the problem.
Frightened by the length of wait, Sarah and her husband Bill Beaton, who run a farming contractor company, decided they would pay for private treatment.
Within a week, she had a scan at Albyn Hospital in Aberdeen and a hysteroscopy was scheduled for the following month.
But the results proved to be a shock as what was removed wasn't in fact a fibroid, but a mass of cells, which turned out to be endometrial cancer.
The mum-of-four last month received a total hysterectomy to remove her womb at the private hospital.
Now recovering from the operation at home, she is waiting to find out if further treatment is required.
Reflecting on her experience, Sarah told the P&J: 'Had we not gone private, I'd be sitting here still waiting.
'You'll be going about your day and thinking 'I'm lucky' but if I hadn't done that, where would I be in 18 months time?
'What sort of stage would it be? Would it be recoverable?
'We're in a position where we can find that money to do that but there are hundreds who are not like me and are not in that position who at the end will have to incur a lot more treatment than if they were seen sooner.'
She added: 'There was no inclination it was anything else until we got that result. It was quite a shock.'
Highlands and Island Tory MSP Douglas Ross raised Sarah's 'intolerable' wait at First Minister's Questions on Thursday.
John Swinney described the situation as 'unacceptable' and insisted the SNP government is investing more in early intervention to avoid these long waits.
Mr Ross said: 'It doesn't bear thinking what the outlook for Sarah may have been had she sat on an NHS waiting list for 18 months before being seen by a specialist and the cancer being uncovered.'
The latest NHS Grampian waiting times figures for June show that where gynaecology patients are referred with a suspicion of cancer, 90% are seen within nine weeks.
Urgent cases are seen in around 25 weeks, while cases assessed as routine are a 64-week wait.
An NHS Grampian spokesman said: 'Behind waiting time figures are real people, with real concerns about their health, and an extremely hard-working clinical team doing their utmost to care for them.
'We are aware patients are often waiting longer for services than they or we would like and we'd apologise to anyone affected by this.
'As a health board we cannot comment on individual patient cases. When a patient, or their representative, makes direct contact with us we are more than willing to discuss their case with them – including their diagnosis, treatment and any further care they received.'
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