TALKING POLITICS Growing opposition to hospital moving

I am pleased to report that more than 5000 people have signed my online petition which calls on the Scottish Government to keep Monklands Hospital on the current site in Airdrie.

Many more people are adding their name to the paper copy of the same petition.

It is clear there is growing opposition to moving Monklands Hospital out of Monklands.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a packed NHS Lanarkshire public consultation meeting in Airdrie town hall.

I was disappointed by the poorly cloaked sales pitch being heavily pushed by the health board for the new hospital to be built on the Gartcosh site.

If the Scottish Government and NHS Lanarkshire are serious about an open and transparent process of consultation, then they must stop pushing through their own agenda; an agenda that will have a detrimental impact on tens of thousands of patients in the immediate locality.

Failure to give serious consideration to a new build on the current Monklands Hospital site would be a dereliction of duty, and rightly be viewed as unforgiveable by many.

I am deeply concerned that one-in-four young people have their CAMHS (Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services) referral rejected in NHS Lanarkshire; the second highest rejected referral rate in Scotland.

Medical and educational professionals are making referrals and these are then being rejected by the health board, most times without even speaking to the young person.

Scotland has the highest rate of death by suicide in Britain and the fact that NHS Lanarkshire has rejected referrals for over a thousand young people in the last 12 months should raise serious questions to whether we are giving enough priority to poor mental health within this area.

The Labour Party recently held its national conference in Liverpool. It is the largest gathering we’ve ever had and was a demonstration of the ambition and vision we have for the country.

Our policies would have a positive economic and social impact in Scotland and highlighted the difference Labour governments would make at Westminster and Holyrood.

When I addressed conference, I spoke about the importance of public ownership, of anti-austerity policies, and of the need for the redistribution of wealth and power.

It struck me that the very issues that are consistently raised by constituents – better bus and train services, a humane social security system and the proper funding of the NHS and other public services are the very challenges our proposals for a wealth tax would address.

In Scotland today the richest one per cent own more personal wealth than the poorest 50 per cent put together. That is why it’s time for a wealth tax on Scotland’s wealthiest 10 per cent, which would raise £3.7 billion to invest in our cash-starved public services.

It is abundantly clear that Theresa May and the Tories

Failure to give serious consideration to a new build on the current Monklands Hospital site would be a dereliction of duty