- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday June 21 2005 13.42 BST
A grandmother has to make a 500-mile round trip every week to a kidney unit for dialysis treatment, it emerged today.
Marion Laird, 62, flies from her home, on Orkney, to a hospital in Aberdeen, where she spends five days at a time.
In the last 12 months, Mrs Laird has had to travel 26,000 miles to the mainland for the lifesaving treatment. She cannot be treated at home because no nurses on the islands are trained in dialysis.
Her husband, Billy, 64, drives her 18 miles from their farm, at Dounby, to the island's airport every Tuesday morning, and she returns home on Saturday afternoon.
Mrs Laird today said her "nightmare" was taking its toll on her family, and she missed her two grandsons, John, six, and five-year-old Jake. "It is just horrible," she said. "I want to be home with my family but I can't be. I am like a lodger in the hospital."
The NHS, which pays her £300 air fare, has advertised for two nurses to help her. Meanwhile, her husband has set up a special room at their home where she could be treated.
Mrs Laird is one of four kidney patients on Orkney who travel regularly to Aberdeen royal infirmary. Of those, she is the one who spends the longest time away, owing to the serious nature of her condition.
She developed kidney problems in 2000 after suffering side-effects from long-term medication for another ailment. In 2002 her husband was trained in Aberdeen to help her use a home peritoneal dialysis unit but in June last year doctors said Mrs Laird needed the more complicated haemodialysis treatment, and this would mean travelling to the mainland.
An Orkney Kidney Patients' Association has been formed to campaign for improvements and has so far raised £8,000 to train new nurses.
The chairman, Richard Shoesmith, said: "All over Scotland renal services are stretched. Marion is one of many people who must travel miles for treatment because there are no facilities here."
After 18 months of planning and consultations, NHS Orkney advertised for the specialist staff this week.
A spokesman for NHS Orkney said the posts, which could suit either one full-time worker or two part-time ones, were for a two-year fixed contract.
