Tis The Season 2014: #16

Christmas display in The Centre, which is a big shopping mall, at Livingston. Mrs. Legodude and Lego-Sprog were in St. Johns Hospital maternity unit at the time, also at Livingston so I went on the hunt for some supplies. Just happened to slip and fall into Toys R Us too. Plan was for Lego-Sprog to be born at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary maternity unit but when we went on Saturday for labour to be induced there were no beds so we were transported twenty miles out to Livingston which was really awkward due to us not having a car. There used to be a maternity hospital in Edinburgh next to the old Royal Infirmary close to the city centre. But when that was replaced by the new PFI funded infirmary on the outskirts, they didn't replace the maternity hospital. It was closed and replaced by a much smaller unit in the new infirmary. PFI is an accounting con whereby private companies build, own and lease the hospital to the NHS at inflated costs way above those of actually building the hospital with government funds. This has saddled many NHS trusts in Britain with huge debts. Government likes this system as it means on paper public spending is kept down as PFI doesn't appear on the treasury's accounts. Neo Liberalism at its most damaging.