The SNP flatly denied plans for a £2billion Monklands super hospital had been ditched when the Sunday Mail revealed the scandal in the run up to May’s Holyrood election.
Days before the vote we told how First Minister John Swinney was drawing up secret cuts with the promised NHS development in Lanarkshire facing being scaled back and delayed after a meeting with officials revealed spiralling costs.
When we put the front page story to the SNP on April 25 the answer was categoric. A spokesman said: “This is simply not true”.
Government admits exclusive was correct
The government is now facing fury after admitting our exclusive had been correct and that advisers for the health service told ministers in March that the plan should be abandoned.
Sophia Coyle, of the Stand Up For Monklands campaign, said: “It is a disgrace, lives are going to be lost without this hospital, the existing building is crumbling, it is not fit for purpose, and we now have no idea when a new hospital will be delivered or what will be delivered.
“It looks increasingly likely that A&E wards could be ditched, specialist cancer wards could be scaled back, and we will effectively be left with a glorified health centre.
“We were promised a palace and instead we are going to get a pre-fab, and who knows when that will be.
“People in Lanarkshire feel thoroughly let down, it has been a complete betrayal and the fact that the SNP clearly kept this secret during the campaign rather than being up front with voters is outrageous.
“They were actually using the promise of the hospital to win votes when all along they knew it was going to be ditched in the form suggested.”
Political sensitivity and safety concerns
The Monklands complex was a sensitive pre-election issue because the proposed development was in then Health Secretary Neil Gray’s Airdrie and Shotts constituency.
The existing building has been dogged by safety issues. The current Monklands hospital dates from the 1970s and requires millions in repairs.
Timeline of the project's collapse
The board of NHS Lanarkshire met in December and approved the full business case for the replacement which was then submitted to the Scottish Government for ministerial approval.
It had been hoped construction would then begin this year at Wester Moffat in Airdrie. Tens of millions has already been spent buying and levelling land in the hope of the project being given the go-ahead, with a promised completion date of 2031.
Documents have now emerged showing that Gray, Maree Todd, the alcohol and drugs minister, and the public health minister Jenni Minto were told in March that an NHS team “would not recommend progressing to construction”.
However ministers continued to talk up the project for months during the Holyrood election campaign.
The public were not told it had been scrapped until June 25, when Angela Constance, the health secretary, made an announcement 20 minutes before parliament closed for the summer.
