Rainbow mural painted on a new bridge walkway at Bromley Hospital has been criticised as example of the NHS’s “waste and wokery”. The Telegraph has more.
The Health Secretary has rebuked an NHS trust for painting a huge Pride flag on a hospital to celebrate diversity.
The Princess Royal University Hospital, in Bromley, south London, last week opened a new link-bridge which is wrapped with a giant three-sided “intersex-inclusive flag” showing the LGBT+ rainbow.
It is the first such mural on an NHS site in the country and follows months of widespread criticism from ministers, MPs and patients over health service chiefs allocating resources to what the Government has branded “waste and wokery”.
Jonathan Lofthouse, a senior executive at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest in the country, which runs the hospital, said it had “adorned the exterior of the link bridge with the Pride Flag, a permanent installation celebrating diversity”, adding: “We’re celebrating permanently.”
But Steve Barclay has led a fierce backlash against the move. A source close to the Health Secretary told the Telegraph on Monday: “This Government is investing record funds in the NHS, including the £6.6 billion extra over the next two years announced in the autumn statement.
“Taxpayers want to see that cash used for cutting waiting lists and caring for patients, not wasted on virtue-signalling vanity projects.”
The trust brought in Valentino Vecchietti, an intersex campaigner, to design the new 30-metre walkway which has taken a year to build. The trust could not provide the total cost when asked by the Telegraph.
The walkway connects the hospital’s day surgery unit with the main hospital and is lined with Pride flag-themed rainbow wallpaper inside, as well as the giant mural on its exterior.
While Vecchietti said it would “provide a gentle and uplifting space”, others questioned its impartiality.
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