A total of 141 patients waited longer than 12 hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged at A&E hospitals in Ayrshire and Arran, new figures show.
And a further 237 patients faced agonising waits of more than eight hours, again at local A&E departments.
The figures come from Public Health Scotland and cover the week ending Sunday, March 13.
In NHS Ayrshire & Arran, only 71.3 per cent of A&E patients were seen within the four-hour standard, falling well short of the Scottish Government’s 95 per cent target.
The figures were met with dismay by some Ayrshire politicians who blame health secretary Humza Yousaf for the ongoing crisis.
South Scotland Labour MSP Colin Smyth said: “We now have the highest waiting times for A&E on record.
“Experts have warned that lives have been lost in parts of Scotland due to the crisis in A&E. Government ministers need to wake up to the crisis and act.”
Jamie Greene, Conservative MSP for the West Scotland region, said: “A&E waiting times continue to be totally unacceptable and responsibility lies with the beleaguered health secretary. Our NHS is clearly not safe in the SNP’s hands.”
South Scotland Conservative MSP Sharon Dowey added: “After months of missing A&E waiting time targets, Humza Yousaf isn’t doing much to improve these waiting times.
“The A&E waiting time targets haven’t been reached once this year, and it’s shocking that the closest we got to the 95 per cent target was in January, where 74 per cent of patients were seen.
“Humza Yousaf needs to remember that he is the health secretary, and that he’s being paid a ministerial salary to oversee and improve the nation’s health – instead of banging the drum for Scottish independence. That’s why he must take responsibility for these failures.”
Mr Yousaf said the Covid pandemic was continuing to “take its toll” on the NHS and the latest figures “continued to underline the extent of the pressure on services.”
He added: “We are currently seeing record high levels of Covid transmission and more people in our hospitals with Covid than at any time during the pandemic. This rise has inevitably had an impact on services like A&E.”
SNP MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Elena Whitham, said A&E waiting times were "not where we would want them to be" and claimed the level of "continued pressure" on the health service was "challenging" due to "relentless demand and pressure" on it for two years.
She added: "The recent rise in cases and hospitalisations, double what they were in February, due to Covid, have thankfully not translated into an increase in the number of people who require intensive care treatment, but that does impact on other healthcare services.”
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