Glasgow’s supposedly ‘troubled‘ super-hospital, the QEUH, has been a steady supplier of stories based on one or two statistically insignificant cases, Scottish Labour ‘ambulance-chasing’ of these few cases and infections ‘linked to‘ deaths there.
Try googling ‘QEUH deaths‘ and you’ll see how obsessive the media interest has been.
Today, Reporting Scotland is headlining a story of a complaint by some staff based on possible risks with no actual figures to prove any consequences in terms of deaths in the hospital.
For years, now, I’ve been trying to counter this shameless demonising of an institution in a proxy war against SNP Government via supposed NHS failures.
In August 2023:
Disgusting Jackie Baillie comparisons of Lucy Letsby case with Glasgow Hospital – one of safest in the UK
Today, she [Jackie Baillie] equates the criminal neglect of the Countess of Chester hospital’s senior staff and administrators in allowing a serial killer to murder more than seven babies, with an infection outbreak in a Glasgow hospital ‘linked’ to but never proven to be causal in the deaths of two babies.
Nauseating? More?
Here’s the fact-check I did in December 2021 which concluded that the QEUH is one of the safest in the UK.
Today’s Holyrood vote of no confidence in Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board is a political stunt orchestrated by Anas Sarwar, based on media reports alleging, free of evidence, serious problems with infection and deaths.
Here are the facts:
In terms of actual mortality in Glasgow hospitals from April 2019 to March 2020, the period in which we saw the deaths supposedly linked to infections, all of the Glasgow hospitals had expected patient mortality rates and the Queen Elizabeth actually had a better than expected rate with nearly 200 less deaths than predicted based on previous years:
In terms of infections:
In the same year, Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB), a proven serious systemic form of infection, which leads to increased morbidity and mortality, in a way pigeon poo fungus does not, was, for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, in the same range as other health boards ie low and falling.
Click to access 1_hai-annual-report-2019-summary.pdf
Again, in the same year, incidents of the very infectious Norovirus fell by 40% to only 890 reports yet in NHS England, 1 000 beds were closed in December alone:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2019/12/nhs-warning-as-winter-vomiting-bug-closes-1000-hospital-beds
If you want to see hospitals where the health board might be sacked but where no one called for that, try these:
An independent review will be held into maternity services at the East Kent NHS Trust after up to 15 babies died there in recent years. Nadine Dorries, minister for patient safety, pledged immediate action and said NHS England would investigate the two hospitals in Margate and Ashford.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-51490841
More than 1,000 babies die or are left with severe injury each year as a result of something going wrong during labour. It goes beyond the current crisis of underfunding: the Care Quality Commission has found that four in 10 maternity services require improvement or are inadequate.
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
This demonisation of the QEUH by Sarwar and Baillie is one of many , many reasons why I would never contemplate voting for Scottish (sic ) Labour .
For staff working there it must be infuriating to have your daily work efforts to help the sick undermined by blatantly ambitious politicians . Claims that the workforce are NOT being targeted by Labour will NOT wash . If you continually throw mud at a workplace , some of it , in the public’s eye , will stick .
Someone with a better memory than me may be able to point out the last time ( first time ? ) either of these two charlatans actually PRAISED the staff without adding an evidence free stab about the ”failings ”of the QEUH .
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Sarwar and Baillie go into this hospital for treatment I know what I would do to them.
As an add on have a listen to this one.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/jeremy-hunt-100-salary-rachel-johnson/
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It’s not just our hospitals.
Scotland is gaslighted day and daily by the colonial press—-from the Torygraf/Times/Mail/Supress to our own dear “voice of London” gutter rags.
The “freedom of the press” is just a licence to smear and vilify Scots by those who wish to suppress and exploit Scotland.
gavinochiltree
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Indeed and their attacks are anything but subtle…..
The BBC love to tell us that they, as a broadcaster, offer balance….
Yet if that was the truth…..then where are all the many positive initiatives and good policies that the SNP , as the Scottish government, implement that are equally promoted and thus given the same amount of coverage by the BBC…..that is….
In comparison to the far more excessive amount of #SNPBAD stories that they, the BBC, actively chase up ……and then constantly highlight in their TV news & Radio programmes and also on their website ?????
The assumption by the BBC is that any #SNPBAD news, that they the BBC (over) promote will , the BBC hopes, cast both the SNP as a party and too as a government, into what the BBC hopes, will be a very bad light…….thus opposition parties get to benefit from the BBC’s ongoing onslaught against the SNP and too their current position as the Scottish government. (and the party in Scotland with the most elected MP’s at WM).
It’s amazing anyone votes at all for the SNP given the treatment they as a party receive from the BBC and other broadcasters too…..and also the printed media as well…..all of the negative press would have relegated any other party to be a minority presence within Scotland as far as having any actual elected politicians would it not….but then I guess that is the ultimate objective via the media is it not !
NMRN
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I imagine most would substitute Reporting Scotland’s ” investigation ” for “cooked up” automatically these days….
Whilst I agree the role of Sarwar and Baillie in the QEUH smear campaign was particularly sickening, we should never forget it was under the dishonorable Sarah Smith’s management of BBC Scotland that this long-running vendetta commenced, and the ” troubled hospital ” tag-line created.
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