A grieving widow has criticised the First Minister for failing to remove health bosses who she claims spied on her and her late husband.
Louise Slorance hit out after a meeting with Humza Yousaf to discuss issues in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) and the death of her husband Andrew.
The civil servant, who worked with former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, died at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth
University Hospital (QEUH) in 2020 after contracting Covid while awaiting a stem cell transplant.
It was only after his death that Louise discovered he was also infected with the bacteria Aspergillus but she was never told about it.
Experts have linked the presence of bacteria in the hospital to dust created during the demolition of the old
Southern General Hospital, which took place as the new facility was being built on the site.
The mum-of-three met Yousaf earlier this month to talk about patient safety concerns at the £842million flagship hospital and to demand the removal of NHSGGC senior management, who she claims have been covering up information and the scale of problems at the site.
But Louise left the meeting without a sense that anything would change.
She said: “Very little came from the meeting. I think the First Minister thought I was there to only talk to him about the spying, which was not the case.
“He did not seem to have been fully briefed about all the information about Andrew’s case or about what has been happening with the public inquiry.
“It went on for some time but I didn’t come out of there thinking he had fully understood the problems or that he would do anything about them.”
The QEUH is now at the centre of a public inquiry into infections and patient safety. As revealed by the Sunday Mail, NHSGGC contracted a private firm – with links to a controversial Facebook data scandal firm called Cambridge Analytica – to monitor Louise as well as mentions of Andrew’s name online.
Louise, 46, said Yousaf would not commit to removing senior management or accept the health board should be put back into the highest category of special measures – level 5.
She added: “He didn’t express any intention to re-escalate special measures, even though he acknowledged there were still concerns about the hospital.
“He said he knew that ‘concerns remain’ but didn’t seem to want to do anything. One positive was that he said we should continue to keep in touch but there’s been no sign of that since the meeting.
“We briefly discussed the spying incident where he said he was disgusted. He repeated the same thing that he said in Parliament and stuck to the same lines.
“He may be disgusted by what they did but he’s done absolutely nothing about it. He needs to take action and show he is taking these issues seriously.”
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