Med. Officer To Resign For Visiting Family Twice Despite Lockdown

A female medical officer is set to drop her job after she ignored her own advice on social distancing and twice went visiting her family.

That meant travelling more than 4o miles from her main base.

Doctor Catherine Calderwood is Scotland’s chief medical officer and has apologised live on TV for her actions, saying her actions were ‘a mistake and human error’ and that were ‘no excuses’.  

This follows police warnings issued after she was given a police warning for ignoring her own advice, The mail online has reported.

But while standing in a press conference beside Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who faced mounting calls to sack the medical expert, she said her intention was to ‘continue to focus’ on her role.

Ms Sturgeon said Dr Calderwood had offered her resignation, but she declined, saying her expertise and advice had been ‘invaluable’.

It comes after photographs, published in The Scottish Sun on Saturday, showed Dr Calderwood and her family near their coastal retreat in Earlsferry, Fife, over the weekend.

In the press conference, Dr Calderwood also admitted to visiting the cottage with her husband the previous weekend.

According to the Scottish Sun, Dr Calderwood’s main home is just two-and-a-half miles from the Scottish Government building in Edinburgh, where she delivers daily briefings on the virus with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Earlsferry is 44 miles away from Edinburgh – a drive of around an hour.

A source for the Scottish Sun accused the doctor of ‘dangerous double standards’, while users of social media site, Twitter, have branded her actions as ‘ridiculous’ and embarrassing’. 

The photographs prompted Police Scotland’s Chief Constable, Iain Livingston, to issue a statement today, in which he said that Dr Calderwood had been visited by officers and warned about her future conduct. 

In a statement, Dr Calderwood described her actions as a ‘mistake’ and apologised ‘unreservedly’.

But this afternoon she took part in a press conference in which she read out a statement.

Speaking at the press conference, she said: ‘I have already issued a statement today apologising unreservedly for travelling away from my home while restrictions were in place.

 ‘As well as this weekend, it is important to be clear that was also there last weekend with my husband.

‘I did not follow advice I am giving to others. I am truly sorry for that.’

‘What I did was wrong. I am very sorry. It will not happen again.

‘I realise how important the advice is that I have issued, I do not want my mistake to distract from that.’ 

The images emerged amid continuing advice from the Scottish government, the chief medical officer herself, and other leading medical professionals to stay at home in order to save lives and protect the NHS.

It also comes just days after the 51-year-old tweeted a photo of her family from their main residence in Edinburgh as they clapped for the front-line NHS staff working to stop the spread of Covid-19. 

Last month, the Scottish Government issued a travel warning criticising the ‘irresponsible behaviour’ of people with second homes and campervans travelling to the Highlands in a bid to isolate.