Superbug blame game

Published on Monday 24 November 2008 20:35

Labour Party members calling for an immediate public inquiry into the outbreak of C. difficile at the Vale of Leven Hospital (your report, 21 November) should be careful what they wish for. They might get it.

Any rigorous inquiry would firmly establish that the Vale of Leven Hospital was continuously run down by Greater Glasgow Health Board all the years of the Labour/Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive, with its expectation that it would eventually become non-viable and most of its work could be transferred to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

The SNP government inherited a run-down shambles at Vale of Leven and the real question is what local Labour MSP Jackie Baillie was doing as it was being stitched up. The efforts of Iain Gray to pin the inevitable disastrous results of the neglect on to Nicola Sturgeon are absurd and despicable, but no more than those of BBC Scotland, who have run Labour's weak line on this on every news bulletin for four days, despite the fact the police inquiry initiated by Ms Sturgeon will have to be completed before any other course of action can be sensibly considered.

DAVID McEWAN HILL

Tom Nan Ragh

Dalinlongart, Argyll

I am sure many people feel it would be fair to say that C. difficile does not develop the minute a new political administration takes over – a point that appears to have been overlooked by those Labour politicians quick to shout for Nicola Sturgeon's resignation.

Like many local residents, I am confident staff at Vale of Leven Hospital have put their all into providing the best possible care, despite being expected to work in some very challenging conditions imposed on them by previous Labour health ministers over many years. There is little doubt that Labour's systemic erosion of services has played a significant role in this situation occurring. Jackie Baillie and her Labour colleagues are not in any position to take the moral high ground.

It is tragic so many people have died as a result of this virus and Labour politicians should, therefore, consider for a moment that it is neither tasteful nor appropriate to make cheap political mileage out of such personal grief – if nothing else, it smacks of desperation and a cover-up of their own failures.

CAROLINE WEINTZ

Stuckleckie Road

Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire