Professor John Robertson OBA

Above, a hospital in England where the A&E roof really did collapse but when Kilbarchan-based playwright, Uma Nada-Rajah, wrote Black Hole Sign for the Traverse Theatre, to be shown this autumn, she set it in Glasgow.

When a hole appears in the roof of a crumbling and understaffed A&E department, patients, porters and nurses do what they must to make it through the night.

Senior charge nurse Crea strives to deliver sage and effective care while porter Billy angles after a date. Staff nurse Ani juggles her bursting caseload, knowing that no one has come to Mr. Hopper’s bedside for his final moments. Octogenarian Tersia is trapped in a disco-fuelled fever dream, while a disgruntled Fred Turnbull prepares his strongly worded complaint. And student nurse Lina has No. Idea. What. Is. Going. On.

Personal principles clash with professional obligations as three generations of nurses and one ‘long in the tooth’ porter are pushed towards breaking point.

Written by practising NHS critical care nurse Uma Nada-Rajah and directed by Traverse Artistic Director Gareth Nicholls, Black Hole Sign takes a razor-sharp scalpel to the absurdities, tragedies and hilarity within one of our most beloved but besieged institutions.

An exploration of changing attitudes towards an institution once world renowned, the play asks what we want for the future of our National Health Service and, crucially, who will hold it together when it all falls down? https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/black-hole-sign-autumn-25#%5Csupercool%5Csupercal%5Celements%5CEvent:797441

I know. it’s drama but it’s also political, very political and it will reinforce, only, the mis-representation we already suffer from the news media.

Here’s why Glasgow and, indeed, Scotland, is the last place in the UK to set crumbling decay, understaffing and breaking points.

Glasgow ambulance average waiting times plummet to just a quarter of England’s

FIVE TIMES as many wait more than 12 hours in two English A&E departments than in Glasgow as 57% of NHS England hospitals fail to declare critical incidents despite ‘out-of-control waiting times

Less ‘troubled?’ Glasgow’s ‘super hospital’ A&E sees 82% improvement

More than 50 English hospitals still have worse mortality outcomes than QEUH in Glasgow

All of Scotland’s hospitals within normal mortality range