THE FINANCIAL and political scandal surrounding the building of the giant Health Care International private hospital in Clydebank refuses to die down.
As widely predicted, the £180 million hospital's opening was almost immediately followed by a cash crisis and the threat of bankruptcy: the shortfall this year is £15m.
Now there is even talk of the government stepping in to bail out the bankers by buying it for the NHS.
The hospital was built - in the teeth of huge public opposition and warnings that it would be a white elephant - with government subsidies totalling £30m.
In addition there was a fAm loan from the job creation quango Scottish Enterprise.
It now turns out this loan was unsecured, and that the final £lm was paid even after officials knew HCI was in financial trouble. In the event the hospital has employed only 400 of the promised 1,800 new jobs.
Touting
Also contrary to early promises that the hospital intended to fly in private patients from abroad, HCI has been trying to solve its problems by touting for contracts to treat NHS patients - the latest being a flm contract to treat waiting list cases from the West Midlands!
Now, amid international debate over the rescheduling of its huge debts, and appeals from HCI for exemption from its £1m VAT bill, it appears that Scottish Tories are pressing for a study of how much it would cost to buy up the hospital and convert it for NHS use.
Estimates suggest a bill as high as f40m: but who would get the contracts? And who would foot the bill?
With red faces bobbing in the clear blue water, the manoeuvres will continue behind the scenes. Beckett • LABOUR's new Shadow Health Secretary, Margaret Beckett, has promised to take a higher profile than her ingloriOus predecessor David Blunkett. That should be easy.
Blinkett made little secret of his contempt for the post and the issue. He took nine months to come out with any clear opposition to the massive hospital closure programme in London.
Now all frustrated Labour activists need is a fighting policy to defend the NHS, in place of the insipid evasions of Blunkett's half-baked consultation document.
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