Scotland’s largest A&E department at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, often fondly described by Scotland’s media as ‘troubled’ by, for example, pigeon fungus, has recovered to levels not seen since January 2022.
In week-ending 22 January 2023, 67.2% of attendances were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within 4 hours. This was an impressive 81.6% improvement from 37.% at the beginning of the month.
There were also improvements of around 50% to 60% in the number waiting more than 12 and 8 hours.
Talking-up Scotland 
This is a hospital which has 10 000 people working in it. It is open 24/7/365 and treats thousands of patients every year. It is a complex building because of the complexity of issues it is intended to deal with. Greater complexity, even with high standards of quality control, tends to result in some things going wrong. But, for almost all of the time almost all of the hospital is functioning well, and almost all patients receive high quality care, even those who die.
However, the media latch on to specific problems – and sometimes these can be serious – and then write sensationalised and lurid accounts implying that the whole thing has failed and then adjectives like ‘troubled’ are routinely attached to it. So, all 10000 employees, thousands of patients are all by implication ‘troubled’.
This labelling and generalising is a feature of journalism. Private schools are always ‘top’ or ‘leading’, but none of the many well-functioning local authority schools in which 95% of Scotland’s children are educated merit such adjectives. However, schools in housing estates which do outstanding work in their communities are often labelled ‘sink’ schools or similar derogatory or condescending terms.
Would anyone describe BBC Scotland News and Current Affairs as ‘leading’ or ‘authoritative’?
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I am surprised that the unionist media /politicians haven’t found a ”gender-related” issue with A & E in Glasgow’s main hospital .
Not even a cross-gender pigeon , water-contaminated incident ?
They really need to work harder at their propaganda !
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Ooh, I’m tempted. Did tweet (sic) this:
and post
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2279862598876692&set=a.285781294951509
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I am surprised that the unionist media/politicians haven’t found a gender-related issue with Glasgow’s main hospital .
Not even a cross-gender pigeon , water-related contamination incident ?
They really need to work harder on their propaganda !
LikeLike