“I think he should come and visit the current site to really see the need for the Eye Pavilion to be replaced as soon as possible.”
Plans for a replacement eye hospital next to the Royal Infirmary at Little France were agreed in principle in 2018, but the government told NHS Lothian in December 2020 it would not fund the project, prompting a public outcry and cross-party calls for a rethink.
During the election campaign, Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP would after all fund a replacement – and she repeated the pledge when she set out the government’s priorities in the Scottish Parliament.
Nicola Sturgeon s pledge to replace Edinburgh s Eye Pavilion welcomed by campaigners, but they don t want to wait ten years
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Edinburgh s Eye Pavilion: Thousands could go blind if services are dispersed
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And he called on the Scottish Government to “end the ambiguity” over its plans and commit to a new hospital at Little France.
Gordon Brown with Dr Hector Chawla Picture: Alex Hewitt
His intervention, just days before the Holyrood elections, comes as Dr Hector Chawla, the consultant responsible for the sight-saving surgery in 1971, sets out in today’s Scotsman why the proposal to disperse services, put forward by the government as an alternative to a new hospital, would not work.
The government told NHS Lothian in December it would not fund a new hospital “now or in the foreseeable future” despite agreeing in principle to the project in 2018 and allowing more than £1 million to be spent on planning the new building. Instead, it said NHS Lothian should review eyecare services, suggesting community optometrists could take a bigger role and operations could be carried out at a new elective centre in Livingston yet to be built.