Glasgow 2014 Benefits From Flu Money
The government is planning to transfer around £10m, originally set aside to deal with swine flu vaccinations, to boost the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games’ coffers.
The project has been slammed by opposition parties as there are ongoing fears of swine flu outbreaks accross the country.
Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: ‘This is a serious error from the SNP government. When swine flu is increasing, it is wrong that there is a multimillion-pound cut in the contingency budget to deal with it.’
The budget said: ‘The £12.6m additional funding for Commonwealth Games 2014 in 2011-12 has been identified from contingency funding for pandemic flu together with procurement efficiencies within eHealth.’
In the last 11 weeks there have been 360 laboratory-confirmed cases of flu, with 237 of these testing positive for swine flu in Scotland.
‘I am genuinely worried at a time when the incidence of swine flu is in fact increasing, there is that £10m cut in the contingency budget to deal with it,’ added Baillie.
‘As the country goes back to work and back to school, we’re expecting cases to soar and GP consultations to go up quite substantially.’?
