Pauline McNeill MSP’s Kelvin spring blog update from the Scottish Parliament
May 12th, 2009 | by Site Admin |
During the Easter Recess, the Scotland to Gaza convoy that I organised along with Edinburgh Direct Aid made its journey to Gaza. After extensive negotiations with the Egyptian authorities, the Rafah border was opened for the convoy. The first group of us entered Gaza with a small consignment of aid bought in Egypt with money raised by Edinburgh Direct Aid, as well as funds collected by Glasgow Central Mosque and money provided by the Scottish Government. A few days later, the main consignment of aid from Scotland, including medical aid and equipment donated by the Scottish Public and collected by Members of the Scottish Parliament through their local pharmacies was able to enter Gaza. The people of Gaza know that Scotland has played its part in responding to the Humanitarian crisis. Further information and photos from the convoy’s journey. I had the opportunity at Health & Wellbeing Question Time to ask the Cabinet Secretary the reasons for the widening gap between the closure of the Queen Mother’s hospital in the constituency and the transfer of integrated services to the new gold-standard children’s hospital at the Southern General, which is now four years, rather than the expected one year. As many of you will remember, I fought extremely hard to preserve the world-renowned integrated child and maternity services that are currently at Yorkhill hospital and the Queen Mother’s hospital and I am concerned that it will be four years without an integrated service. The Evening Times also covered this issue on the same day. I am delighted that the Whiteinch Centre in the constituency successfully applied to the Big Lottery Fund’s Growing Community Asset programme and I lodged a motion in Parliament congratulating the centre, as well as lodging a further motion congratulating Glasgow-born Carol Ann Duffy as the first woman to hold the post of poet laureate in 341 years. Finally, in my role as Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Culture, I participated in a cross-party panel on supporting and promoting the arts and cultural activity at the Holyrood Conference ‘Future Arts & Cultural Policy’. Thanks for stopping by. Pauline McNeill MSPfor Glasgow Kelvin
I am delighted that the Scotstoun Leisure Centre is a Pre-Games Training Camp for the 2010 Olympic Games and I had an opportunity to visit the facilities with Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Olympics, as well as Ann McKechin MP and John Robertson MP.
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