Most blinds at new QEUH ‘don’t work’
PATIENTS in Glasgow’s super-hospital have been left without access to natural light after issues with blinds.
Rooms in the £842 million Queen Elizabeth University Hospital have been compared to jail cells as patients are unable to see the outside world.
A failing wand mechanism has left many blinds unable to open or close.
The health board are being forced to carry out repairs on the malfunctioning blinds which they say is caused by staff and patients misuse.
THE “majority” of blinds in the single rooms of Glasgow’s new £842million hospital are broken less than two years after it opened.
All rooms in the 1,109-bedded hospital have integral blinds on the widows, and some doors, which are fitted between two panes of glass and operated with a pole.
However, most of the blinds can’t be open or closed because of a fault with the wand mechanism and the health board has said they will all have to be replaced.
The Evening Times reported last year how nurses were forced to drape aprons over doors to give patients privacy because nurses couldn’t shut the faulty blinds.
The health board had to remove doors from patient rooms to repair them.
One relative compared her fatherin-law’s single room to Barlinnie saying he had not experienced natural light for weeks.
The board has blamed incorrect use of the blinds for the problem – patients and staff are required to twist the pole rather than pulling it.
However a spokeswoman said a “more robust” mechanism is required.
NHSGGC was unable to provide the name of the firm who supplied the blinds to the hospital, which opened in April 2015.
One relative, whose terminally ill father-in-law was in hospital for more than a month last year, said: “The room that my father-in-law has been in is more like a room in Barlinnie.
“I find it completely unacceptable that any one can be put in a room for weeks and unable to see the outside world.
“His blinds do not open at all, the outside area he can see is tiny gaps in the tattered blinds.
“His room has absolutely no natural light at all.”
“I wonder who the clinical director, consultants and bosses at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde would feel if their mother, father or brother or even their friend was put into what is essentially a closed box for weeks at a time?”
The health board said it was continuing to repair the wands.
A spokeswoman for NHSGGC said: “The actual blinds are not broken, however there is a problem with the operating mechanism (wand) which is affecting the majority of them.
“The wands which open and close the blinds are being used inappropriately to try to raise the blinds causing the wands to break.
“The company continues to repair the broken wands as quickly as possible but we recognise that we need a more robust operating mechanism and are hoping to have an alternative in place via the national procurement framework by the end of March.”