NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of presiding over a spiralling backlog of NHS repairs after an infection linked to pigeon droppings killed a child in Scotland’s largest hospital.
Acting Tory leader Jackson Carlaw said the “tragic” death at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow raised “wider questions” about the SNP Government’s record.
He said the NHS maintenance backlog in Scotland had more than doubled from £400m when Ms Sturgeon was health secretary around a decade ago to £900m.
The public spending watchdog Audit Scotland has frequently raised the scale of the backlog, and warned there is no overall plan to clear it.
“Is it any wonder that we see problems emerging not just at the Queen Elizabeth but at other hospitals across Scotland?” Mr Carlaw said at FMQs.
A child cancer patient died late last year after being infected at the £842m hospital by Crypotococcus fungus, which grows in pigeon dirt.
An adult patient also died after contracting the infection at the hospital, which opened in 2015, although in their case it was not deemed a contributing factor.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has now ordered a review of the design, construction, handover and maintenance of the hospital, which replaced the Southern General.
On Wednesday she was criticised after agreeing infection rates there were “good enough”.
Mr Carlaw said the deaths at the Queen Elizabeth had “shaken confidence” in the facility.
He said: “This alarming story has raised wider questions about the Government’s record on the NHS. “There is a £900m maintenance backlog on NHS buildings, including hospitals, in Scotland. Almost 45 per cent of that is defined by the Scottish Government as high risk.”
Ms Sturgeon expressed her “deepest condolences” to the families of the two dead patients.
She promised an NHS “capital investment plan” by April. She said she did not want a “party political” exchange, but added: “These are difficult times for public finance.”
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard read out a list of problems at the hospital and accused Ms Sturgeon of complacency over infection control standards.
Ms Sturgeon said: “ I know how devastating outbreaks are for families and hospital staff, and how damaging they can be to confidence in the health service. There will be no complacency at all. It is difficult to say this: infections do happen in hospitals. There is probably not a hospital anywhere that has not had some kind of infection outbreak. Everything possible will be done to ensure that there is no repetition of this outbreak.”
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