Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, on Monday defended her handling of revelations that her chief medical officer flouted official coronavirus advice by twice making weekend visits to a holiday home.
Ms Sturgeon had on Sunday initially sought to retain Catherine Calderwood as CMO, then decided Dr Calderwood would no longer feature in daily coronavirus briefings and a public health information campaign, and finally announced her resignation in a late-evening statement.
“It became obvious to me that the risk that I saw and still feel of losing the continuity of advice from the chief medical officer . . . was outweighed by the risk of the government’s message becoming drowned out or undermined by her staying in office,” Ms Sturgeon said on Monday morning.
People were “entitled to think” that it was an error of judgment not to remove Dr Calderwood immediately, but they should accept that such judgments were being made in “good faith and with the best motivations”, the first minister told the BBC.
Asked if Dr Calderwood had offered to resign or been forced out, Ms Sturgeon said the two had a long conversation on Sunday night. “It was my view [that she had to step down], but she came to the same view,” Ms Sturgeon said.
The chaotic handling of the controversy around Dr Calderwood’s weekend visits to her second home in Fife, about 45 miles from her main residence in Edinburgh, threatens to cloud what even political opponents have called Ms Sturgeon’s assured performance during the coronavirus crisis.
Jackson Carlaw, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said last month he had “every confidence” in Ms Sturgeon to lead Scotland’s response to the pandemic, but most opposition parties on Sunday had quickly suggested that Dr Calderwood’s position was untenable.
Ms Sturgeon also faced criticism over her government’s initial response to the first report by the Scottish Sun newspaper, which published photographs of Dr Calderwood and her family near their holiday home on Saturday.
The first government comment said the chief medical officer had only visited the Fife home to “check on it”. Dr Calderwood later admitted that she had also visited the property with her husband the previous weekend.
The spread of coronavirus so far appears less rapid in Scotland than in areas such as London and the introduction of strict social distancing rules have fuelled optimism in the Scottish government that dramatically expanded intensive care facilities will be able to cope with peak demand.
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However, concerns about the readiness of the care sector to cope have risen after news at the weekend that 16 people at a single care home in Glasgow had died between March 27 and April 5, with 12 of them showing symptoms consistent with coronavirus infection.
Jeane Freeman, Scotland’s health secretary, told BBC radio on Monday morning said she understood that the Burlington Court Care Home had been sufficiently equipped with personal protective equipment and that “work is under way to understand exactly what happened” at the facility.
Ms Freeman said Gregor Smith, Scotland’s deputy chief medical officer, would initially take over Dr Calderwood’s role. “Dr Smith is very capable [and] he has been involved in this alongside Dr Calderwood for very many weeks now,” she said.
