May I offer my congratulations to everyone who has made it possible to open the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in Glasgow.
Construction work only began on the 31st March and was completed on the 19th April - an astonishing achievement by contractors and all the NHS staff who were involved in the project.
This is a successful team effort and it will need to continue in order to make the best use of the facilities here.
I am particularly pleased by the name you have chosen. A few years ago, I helped celebrate the centenary of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and their founder, Dr Elsie Inglis. Glasgow born Louisa Jordan and many others responded to her challenge by working as nurses in one of the fourteen hospitals set up across Europe in the First World War. The biggest risk to their patients and themselves was often disease, especially Typhus. Louisa Jordan herself died of Typhus in Serbia in 1915. That devotion to patients is being shown by nurses, medical and support staff across Scotland today, so it is entirely fitting that we should name this important new hospital after Louisa Jordan.
The role of this building is about providing spare capacity which will ensure support to the whole of the NHS in Scotland, and importantly will give confidence that there are enough facilities available for whatever happens now, or in the future.
Covid-19 has done something very rare. It has affected every single person’s life in some way; sadly, for some, in a very personal and final way. But while many people feel frustrated and helpless, the Louisa Jordan Hospital is a way of being positive and helpful, and although we would all hope that it doesn’t need to be used, we can all be very grateful that it exists.
