NHS Glasgow waiting times for gynaelogical conditions

Setting up a remote team who are mostly Glasgow based. Project is 18 months but one of my colleagues is waiting for surgery for a gynaecology issue. They have already been waiting around 9 months. She refused to do the last project too incase she got a surgery date. I said we can work round this when she git her date but she said, they can sometimes we told with inky 48 hours notice. Is this really how shitty the health service has got that people are putting their lives on hold in the hope they get a date and the date is really last minute? Had surgery a few years back for an issue with my knee and it was nothing like this, clear treatment plan and seen and surgery within 4 months, so wondered if actually it was just an excuse to not be on the projects. This person is great at their job hence the reason I have asked them to be on these projects. I want to tell them we could arrange private surgery as a company if they wanted to get them back to the top of their game professionally but don't want to over step and push into a corner if surgery is actually just an excuse rather than a reason.

Anyone know why or if gynaecology surgery wait times are so long in Glasgow area and if you do only find out last minute you have an operation.

UPDATE: Thanks for the insight and sorry to hear this is a first hand experience/ issue for so many of you. Just want to clarify, don't think this person is lying at all was just wanting to get an insight on the surgery wait times and the concept of cancellations. We want her on our teams and think very highly of her but because two really good offers have been turned down (not like them) I just want to put feelers out that it is the surgery motivating this rather than not wanting to do projects but also jot wanting to stop future offers. I think we have a good enough working relationship to let them know we could facilitate private care if they wanted.