A Highland MSP has questioned the First Minister on when the long-promised new Belford Hospital will be delivered.
After a "10 per cent cut" to its capital budget, last week the Scottish Government urged health boards like NHS Highland to pause spending on captital projects, including Lochaber’s new Belford Hospital in Fort William.
"Appalled" Fort William and Ardnamurchan councillor Angus MacDonald (Lib Dem) reacted: "All the design work is done, millions of pounds have been spent, the project is shovel ready. Highland Council own the land at Blar Mhor, even Kate Forbes has said that funding had been pledged to her.
"In 1999, the campaign started for a new Belford, 25 years ago. Since then services have been reduced and reduced. With a resident population of 20,000 and 500,000 visitors we desperately need a modern hospital fit for purpose. With Ben Nevis attracting a massive number of walkers and climbers, the A&E is seldom quiet.
"Due to the lack of care home beds, delayed discharges are a real challenge. Twenty five years ago I’ve been told there were three ambulances based in Lochaber, now there are 13, many shuttling up to the already crowded Raigmore.
"Last summer, I took many thousands of signed petitions down to the Health Minister Michael Matheson, he was in no doubt how important the Belford replacement is to people from Eigg, to Lochaline to Mallaig to Invergarry. If he were to visit Fort William I’m sure that thousands would greet him with placards.
"Once again the West is being disadvantaged. It is not good enough."
This week, at First Minister’s Questions at the Scottish Parliament, Highlands and Islands Conservative MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston asked: "Following the SNP-Green Government’s latest budget, NHS Highland has been forced to put development of the much needed and already delayed replacement for the Belford hospital in Fort William on hold.
"The current building will be 60 years old next year and patients staff and pretty much everyone except clearly, the Scottish government recognize the urgent need for a new hospital.
"So can the First Minister tell me when the people of Lochaber who have been campaigning for decades for a new Belford will get the new hospital that they have been promised."
The First Minister Humza Yousaf, SNP MSP for Glasgow Pollock, replied: "We will of course provide this chamber with an update in relation to our capital projects including health capital projects.
"What I would say to Jamie Halcro Johnson is, of course, in the face of a real terms cut, not just to our resource budget but 10 per cent cut to a capital budget over the coming five years, we’re continuing to ensure that NHS gets a pay uplift.
"A very, very stark contrast to a Conservative UK Government that has prioritised tax cuts for the wealthy over prioritizing spend in the NHS."
Afterwards, Mr Halcro Johnston said local people will be "deeply disappointed with the First Minister’s vague response" and that the community "deserve to know when they will get the hospital they’ve been promised.
"Instead of taking responsibility, the First Minister – who was previously Health Secretary himself - is once again trying to pass the buck and deflect accountability," he said. This is simply unacceptable when the local community has been campaigning for a new hospital for decades.
"Promises have been made and are, yet again, being broken. And given there are now no firm timescales being provided on when work will begin again on the project, what confidence can local people have that it will be delivered any time soon?
“Local communities – and the staff who work at the nearly 60-year-old Belford Hospital - deserve to know when they will get the hospital they’ve been promised.
“Unfortunately, yet again, the needs of Highland communities are not a priority for Humza Yousaf and his SNP/Green government in Edinburgh."
Caol and Mallaig councillor Andrew Baldrey (Green) told us: "In the case of the ‘missing hospital’ – what more can one say? It’s basically all down to the same problem – the Tories in Westminster seem to think you can run a country on a shoestring.
"What you get when you try to run anything on very little is a knackered workforce and building infrastructure – indeed a completely ‘threadbare’ country!"
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