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In the Herald today, the above and:

Source: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26526174.swinney-told-protect-qeuh-evidence-nhs-overhaul/

Baillie has not been keeping up. The Glasgow health board running the QEUH these last near 20 years will not be responsible for anything to do with bacterial infections linked to patient deaths but individuals in the Labour party may.

Why?

‘The Labour Glasgow Council chose the site in 2004. The hospital completion was signed off in 2015, by a health board stuffed with Labour councillors, no SNP members and under a Labour city administration going back 80 years. It was Glasgow Labour Councillors on the Board who exerted pressure to get QEUH open without delay and without fully informing SNP/Scot Gov of full facts about concerns’

That headline is quote from a Herald Facebook comments section.¹

Another comment suggested – ‘Labour had more to gain from the opening of the hospital as they had 9 councillors sitting on the health board.’

There were several other comments suggesting similar views.

Are these any less reliable than what we have heard from BBC or Herald reporters or from Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie insisting that the SNP Government is to blame for forcing the hospital to open too early?

Why would the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board care when the hospital opened? It was entirely their responsibility to oversee the chief executive and make sure the project was completed on time.

How many SNP politicians were on the board? None. How many Labour politicians were on the board in 2015? Nine.

The board operated within Glasgow City Council‘s territory and it was then still a Labour-run council.

Say the Scottish Government was pushing for the hospital to open on time, can you imagine a Labour Council giving in to that? They hate the SNP.

Is there any reliable evidence that the Scottish Government did apply pressure?

The most relevant and independent voice is Fred Mackintosh KC, senior counsel to the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry.

He stated there was “no evidence of external pressure” from the Scottish Government or other outside entities to open the hospital prematurely.

Even more revealing:

Health board bosses involved in the opening of the hospital had not provided evidence of ‘pressure either from them or from anyone else’ for the campus to open early. […] So there’s pressure in the sense that it would be a good idea to meet the target because otherwise it will be difficult for everybody, there will be failures, but we didn’t detect in the evidence pressure to open it earlier than was planned.

Difficult for everybody? The nine Labour members of the board?

Finally, when did the board inform the Scottish Government of concerns about the water supply? 2018, three years after opening.⁴

Sources:

1. https://www.facebook.com/heraldscotland/posts/breaking-political-pressure-was-applied-to-open-glasgows-troubled-queen-elizabet/1320950943385560
2. https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,political-pressure-pushed-glasgow-hospital-to-open-to-early-minutes-say and https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/john-swinney-scottish-government-scottish-labour-glasgow-msps-b2910168.html
3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx20kxwej11o
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clygg3rr371o

Once more, all the facts:

1. The hospital completion was signed off in 2015, by a health board stuffed with Labour councillors, no SNP members and under a Labour city administration going back 80 years.
2. The location of the hospital 200m from a huge raw sewage treatment plant, in open-topped stirred ponds, 7 000 litres per second, was approved by the same council and health board, in 2008, months into a first SNP minority government.
3. Researchers at Glasgow University in 2016 confirmed that wastewater cannot be 100% contained.
4. No hospital can ever be sealed 100% against bacteria and that’s why they’re never built near sewage works.
5. Expert witnesses at the inquiry last year were shocked to discover that the site was so near to a sewage works when 7 new hospitals in England were not.
6. Nowhere else in Scotland, other than in Labour Glasgow, have hospitals ever been built next to sewage works, nowhere in England and as far as I can find, nowhere in the world.
7. In the Falkirk area, they moved it from a location just over a mile away to three miles away and further upwind.
8. In 2002, SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon strongly opposed the location of the hospital in a Holyrood debate.
9. There were better sites in Glasgow but they went to rich developers for housing. Why? Why?
10. Glasgow Labour did the same thing with the siting of another hospital in Clydebank.

There are too many of our reports on this to show below but you can read them all WITH their sources of evidence at: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=sewage

Help Talking-up Scotland keep going

Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going

Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421