Russell Findlay has today written to the chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to ask who pressured the health board to open the scandal-hit Queen Elizabeth University Hospital before it was ready.
John Swinney denied in parliament yesterday (Thursday) that the pressure came from the SNP Government – but he refused to say where it had come from.
As a result, the Scottish Conservative leader has demanded that Professor Jann Gardner reveal who the health board was referring to when it made the explosive claim in its closing statement to the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry this week.
Findlay said that the families of those who died from suspected infections picked up at the hospital deserved “straight answers” after years of cover-up from NHSGGC.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said: “Nicola Sturgeon and other SNP politicians noisily bragged about the new hospital which opened just 10 days before the 2015 general election.
“But John Swinney has told me that no-one from the SNP government put pressure on the NHS to open the QEUH when it was not ready to open. If his claim is true, then who did apply the pressure?
“Given that Mr Swinney has repeatedly refused to answer this critical question, I have today asked the health board in writing.
“Professor Gardner signed off the board’s bombshell statement to the inquiry, so she must know the answer. Grieving parents, and the wider public, deserve straight answers. Not more lies and evasion.
“This shameful episode, the smearing of grieving parents of child cancer patients, exposes the SNP’s toxic culture of secrecy and lies which contaminates many of Scotland’s public bodies.”