Sick people in the Vale of Leven faced journeys of over an hour to other hospitals when the out of hours service was not available at The Vale of Leven Hospital last weekend.

‘Save The Vale’ facebook page told how the service was not running at the hospital on Saturday and Sunday, January 13 and 14.

Patients were being told to call NHS 24 and they were being sent to out of hours services elsewhere including the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley, Inverclyde Royal in Greenock and Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow.

The journey to Inverclyde Royal takes about an hour and ten minutes and can cost as much as £80 in a taxi, and patients often have to fork out for this themselves.

John Bundy said on the Save the Vale page: “My partner is needing a doctor and can’t get out the house. She was basically fobbed off and told to wait for a doctor to call her. It’s a joke of a service. It’s going to take someone to die before something changes.”

He said in a later post that she was taken to Inverclyde Royal in Greenock and back in a taxi.

Gillian Dougan said: “We are heading to the RAH now, it’s ridiculous.”

John Maloney commented: “I was sent to Gartnavel because the out of hours was shut at the Vale. Was then told it would be a couple of hours before I would get to see a doctor. Turned out I had appendicitis. Shocking.”

Irene Paterson said: “We desperately need this service for this widespread area.”

Jennifer Smith said: “Disgusting, apart from anything else what happens to people that don’t have transport or money to travel to Paisley.”

Mark Casey, who is campaigning to save the Vale of Leven Hospital from closing, said: “I attended Vale of Leven on Friday as a walk-in patient and because I hadn’t phoned NHS 24 the GP said my notes were blocked.

“This is happening on a regular basis and the NHS has previously used the excuse that they can’t get doctors to cover.

"I find this hard to believe because we’ve had cover in the past, but it may be down to the pay grade being different at the Vale of Leven.

“The fact that the NHS is expecting people to pay extortionate taxi fares to other hospitals is ridiculous.

“Some patients are waiting for the out of hours service to open at the Vale of Leven at 10pm and then they have to wait to be seen there.

“It’s of deep concern when there’s no local cover."

He added: “People are having to travel further and further afield which puts even more pressure on the ambulance service.

“The NHS has a minibus service, but it's not always available and you could be sitting on the bus for an hour and a half journey and then you could wait two hours to be seen.

“This is extremely stressful if you have a sick child who is screaming and shouting and has a temperature.”

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: “