Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 March 2022
I am pleased to speak for my party in the debate and I thank Anas Sarwar for all his work with families and victims to shine a spotlight on the important issue that is raised in the motion. It has been three months since members debated the horrific scandal—it is a scandal—at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. It is more than three years since we learned of serious safety and cleanliness issues at the hospital, which ranged from grime-damaged facilities to contaminated supplies.
QEUH was built to provide the most excellent and efficient healthcare to all who needed it but, in the years after it opened, problems at the hospital had a catastrophic impact on some patients. In December, we heard the stories of some victims of the scandal, including Andrew Slorance, a father of five and dedicated public servant, whose widow, Louise, has had to campaign to hear the full and unvarnished facts about her husband’s death. We also heard about Milly Main, to whom the proposed law is dedicated. Milly passed away in the paediatric hospital when she was just 10 years old.
The tireless campaigning of Milly’s mother, Kimberly Darroch, alongside that of Louise Slorance, has brought much-needed light to the issues to do with transparency at QEUH and the health board that oversees the hospital. It is right that we all applaud their efforts to seek justice and that we acknowledge their bravery in confronting the issues that led to the tragic deaths of their loved ones.
As I have said in the chamber, I am a father of three young children. My daughter is not much younger than Milly was when she died, and my heart breaks for Kimberly and all those who have lost family members as a result of the issues at the hospital. I can only imagine the anguish that they have gone through.
Far too many families have faced barriers in their search for answers. It seems that, too often, when people have been most in need of help and support, doors have been shut in their faces and those people have got the undeniable feeling that the Government and the institutions that are there to serve them in their time of need have acted as a barrier to the truth and justice that they deserved. There is a painful symmetry with the experience of families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, who, for years, met obstacle after obstacle in their search for the truth and clarity that they so desperately needed to be able to peacefully lay their loved ones to rest.
The tragedies at QEUH have shone a light on the problem of institutions that too often seek to protect themselves at the expense of offering up the unvarnished truth. That is why my party is pleased to support the motion in Anas Sarwar’s name. It is right that families who find themselves in the most distressing and vulnerable situations imaginable should have access to a representative who will act on their behalf and ensure complete transparency from the beginning and at every stage of an investigation.
Anas Sarwar talked about his hope that this is a watershed moment in our politics. I, too, hope that we are now able to recognise and correct the problems in our institutions when it comes to investigating why things have gone badly wrong. I pray that, out of the unimaginable tragedy of Milly Main’s death, a law in her name and which bears her name might one day be an emblem of the right of every family who experience a tragedy to full transparency, accountability and justice.