'Ghost clinic' left to rot as funding for hospital rebuild delayed by years

WARNING THAT QMC IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF MAINTENANCE CASH

- JOEL MOORE

THE eerie ding of an out-of-order lift echoes through the corridors of an abandoned hospital clinic.

Sheets of fabric sag from the ceil-ing amid a multitude of leaks, while paint peels away in rooms contain-ing disused treadmills and the skel-etons of trolleys.

This can all be found in the bowels of the Queen’s Medical Centre, one of the busiest hospitals in the coun-try.

"It’s very embarrassing," says head of estates Mike Soroka. "If we don’t upgrade the infrastructure more areas could become like this."

His warning comes two months after the government announced it would be pushing back Nottingham University Hospitals’ (NUH) major hospital rebuilding programme to at least 2037.

The trust, which also runs City Hospital, said at the time it was "very disappointed" by the announce-ment, describing its project, called Tomorrow's NUH, as “desperately needed”.