Our latest opinion column is written by Ross Greer, Green MSP for the West of Scotland.

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We need more staff in our hospitals and GP surgeries. That’s not news to anyone who has used the Scottish NHS in recent years.

Hugely dedicated nurses, doctors and support staff consistently go the extra mile for their patients and provide the best service they can but there simply is not enough of them.

One in four GP surgeries has at least one vacancy and the wider problem of staff recruitment is only going to get worse, with some health boards preparing for over a third of staff to retire in the next 15 years.

It’s quite clear that we need to get more health professionals working in Scotland, so why are the Tories going for a Brexit which is already doing the opposite?

There is little value in replaying the referendum debate from last year, but we should all be able to agree that leading Leave campaigners often went far too far and created an environment in which too many of the 180,000 other European citizens living in Scotland felt unwanted, undervalued or even unsafe.

And for those considering coming here to work, watching on from a distance, it has done a lot to change minds.

It might not be immediately obvious what the link is between our NHS and the debate around immigration and free movement after Brexit but the reality is that the NHS across the UK simply would not have been able to cope without workers from the rest of Europe filling every conceivable kind of skills gap and recruitment shortage.

In England, more than 60,000 NHS staff are citizens of other EU countries from a total “non-British” workforce of more than 130,000.

When it comes to doctors it’s more than one in four.

The uncertainty the Tories have caused over their right to stay here, as well as the hostility which has been whipped up, is making may European citizens working in our NHS consider leaving.

Four out of ten European doctors recently surveyed confirmed that they are considering leaving the UK and the number of European nurses registering to work here has dropped an incredible 96 per cent, from 1,304 to 46.

Our friends and neighbours from the rest of Europe have given so much to this country.

They have enriched our culture, supported our economy and kept our health services going. We must fight for their right to stay and be welcomed.