A PENSIONER is forced to make a 200-mile round trip every month for a 15-minute hospital appointment.

Dorothy Anderson, 79, from Thurso, Caithness, has to make the marathon journey to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for treatment at least once a month.

She has now made an emotional plea to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Health Secretary Shona Robison to come and meet her in her home in the north of the country.

Her video, posted on Facebook by Ron Gunn, vice-chairman of Caithness Health Action Team, has been viewed nearly 30,000 times.

Mr Gunn hopes the appeal will encourage other families with similar stories to come forward.

Mrs Anderson has to get up at 5am once a month just to attend a 10 to 15-minute hospital appointment 100 miles away at Raigmore and the travelling is taking its toll on the pensioner.

Mrs Anderson has myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease which gives her symptoms including droopy eyelids, double vision and shortness of breath.

In the video Mrs Anderson, says: “I would like to ask Nicola Sturgeon and Shona Robison, would any of them be happy if their mother or granny travelled in a train for four and a half hours to go for an appointment?

“I would like to tell them my stories and let them see what I looked like a year ago.”