AN OFF-DUTY health worker who headed into hospital over the festive period to help under-pressure NHS Borders “came home in tears”, a meeting has been told.

The board put out an appeal for staff to lend a hand at Borders General Hospital (BGH) on their days off with services “stretched beyond capacity”.

Last week, Galashiels Community Council chairwoman Judith Cleghorn said that the worker was with two nurses in a 34-patient ward.

“She came home in tears,” she said. “One person was lying in their own soil.

“The morale of the hospital staff was absolutely horrendous. The NHS is struggling but part of the problem seems to me at the end of hospital care when they need to move on somewhere else.”

Galashiels councillor Fay Sinclair, of the SNP, said there was a big issue with recruitment.

“There’s money there for carers but we can’t get enough people to fill the roles,” she said. “We’re in dialogue with the council and they’re doing what they can about that.

“We’re ending up with the NHS taking the strain as there aren’t the carers to get them out of hospital. People get stuck in hospital.”

A comment from council leader Euan Jardine, read aloud by Ms Cleghorn, said the local authority was “acutely aware of the challenges facing the NHS” but every issue could not be solved with “finite resources”.

Mr Jardine, who was not in attendance at the meeting, added that extra care housing facilities in Galashiels and Duns had led to an increase in ‘care at home capacity’ in the last year of 16 per cent.

The Conservative Galashiels councillor said that another development in Kelso would be completed this year.

Fellow town representative Neil Mackinnon, of the Green Party, said: “It really comes down to funding as care jobs are seen as not very desirable.

“Council officers and carers are doing the best they can with what they’ve got.”

NHS Borders has repeatedly issued public releases about the emergency department at the hospital being extremely busy.

Describing a recent visit to the BGH, community councillor Bill White said: “I saw there were a lot of people in A&E that didn’t need to be there.”

The region’s health board has also asked people to be ready to collect their relatives from hospital to avoid delayed discharges and to free up beds.

An NHS Borders spokesperson said: “We continue to see very significant demand for our services and do acknowledge the pressure that our staff are facing.

“Our staff continue to work tirelessly to treat the patients in their care across all our services and we are immensely grateful to them.

“We place great importance on staff wellbeing. We work together with unions, HR, and occupational health & safety teams to identify all that can be done to support staff in these challenging times.”