THE Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is in “disarray,” after losing its third lawyer in just three weeks, according to Scottish Labour.
Samantha Rore, who has left to join the Covid-19 inquiry, is the latest solicitor to resign, less than a month after the departures of Alastair Duncan KC and Victoria Arnott.
The inquiry was ordered by the then Health secretary, SNP’s Jeanne Freeman, after a series of scandals hit the new-build Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus (QEUHC), and the Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh.
The enormous 1,933-bed QUEHC, also home to Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, has suffered a catalogue of problems since its £842 million build was completed in 2015.
Eight years after opening its doors, parts of the structure still remain shrouded in scaffolding after incidents of huge wall and glass panels falling off the building — a source of litigation between the Scottish government and builders Multiplex, Capita Property and Infrastructure, and Currie and Brown.
Ongoing issues around the resourcing and staffing of the super-hospital continue to arise, with a Portakabin extension to its A&E having to be added in recent years amid queues of ambulances waiting, in some cases for hours, to unload their patients.
Since opening, the QEUHC has continued to suffer from infections, thought to have been spread through water and ventilation systems, which have resulted in multiple deaths.
Scottish Labour has called for “total transparency” in an inquiry which it says has been “thrown into disarray” by the resignations.
Scottish Labour Health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “The loss of three lawyers in such a short space of time is a massive blow to this vital inquiry.
“The patients and families affected by this scandal have been failed at every turn and were too often kept in the dark by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
“Families and whistle-blowers have been badly failed — they simply cannot be expected to wait even longer for answers.
“It is essential that the inquiry maintains their trust and that requires total transparency around the causes and consequences of these departures.
“This inquiry must have the support it needs to shed some light on this tragedy and provide the answers victims deserve.”
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We continue to support the work of the Inquiry and have assurances that the process of identifying both a senior and junior counsel are progressing.
"We do not expect that this process will have a significant impact on the Inquiry timescales, the Inquiry has stated that the investigative plan for the QEUH set out in March of this year continues to progress towards hearings in 2024.”
