Meeting of the Parliament 19 March 2026 [Draft]
Children died at that hospital, so I suggest that members listen.
More than a decade ago, the SNP Government opened a hospital in Glasgow that was not safe because of ventilation and water safety issues. Four years later, the opening of the sick kids hospital in Edinburgh was delayed because of ventilation and water issues. Now it has emerged that, in Aberdeen, the opening of the new Baird family hospital and the Aberdeen and north centre for haematology, oncology and radiotherapy—the ANCHOR centre—is being delayed again because of ventilation and water safety issues. Those are three hospitals in three cities that sum up the mess that the SNP has made of running our country.
At the core of all that is the lie and the cover-up about what happened at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. Had the Government told the truth and confronted the problems then, the mistakes would not have been repeated. Instead, that lie has cost the public purse millions and meant delayed and defective hospitals. Tragically, that lie has cost lives. Why was that lie more important to John Swinney than patient safety?