Southside Happenings

Yesterday I went to get an Xray on my ankle which I'd hurt playing football a few weeks ago. I probably should have gone at the time, as my foot was a lovely blue colour and was twice the size it should have been but I didn't and when I eventually did go to the doctors it was merely an uncomfortable and odd shaped lump.

The doctor advised that she thought I'd fractured a bone and that an xray was in order. She gave me a wee card and told me to go between the hours of 9am and 5pm any day of the week. So not wanting to be to late for work I decided to head down there really early yesterday morning and get first in line. I walked over to the Victoria Infirmary at 8:30 only to find that the xray clinic door was locked. I took a seat and waited. About 9:30 someone eventually walked passed and I tried to follow them through the door - only for them to tell me that on Thursdays the clinic doesn't open until 11am.

Victoria Infirmary - Xray clinic

This was a bit of a pain as it meant I had an hour and a half to kill. But it was a pretty nice day so I went for an adventure around Battlefield. I met some really nice people in a couple of local family run businesses and it reminded me of a project I recently read about on the Queens Park Camera Club website. (I'll post separately about the shops I went into later.)

New Victoria Hospital being built - looks a bit crappy from the mock proposed image.

I then took a wander along to see the new Victoria Hospital being built across the road from the original. I knew vaguely that there had been a bit of controversy over its building - relating to the costs involved and local concerns of that the range and quality of care available would be downsized but from reading through some articles on the web it is probably going to be a much healthier building once its completed and will combine a lot of new services - albeit there won't be an A+E anymore, which will move to Southern General.

I hate to see old buildings like the Victoria not able to meet the gowing demands of their original purposes, and I worry that developers are a bit quick to right off old buildings as not fit for purpose to get their hands on the land - its a big problem at the moment in Glasgow, with old schools, Churches and hospitals being sold off all over the city. The Victoria is a really nice old building and sadly apparently only the back section (the bit facing the Queens Park) is listed so who knows what the developers plans are for the rest of the place. I'd like to think it could become a real mixed use site maybe with a nice hotel over looking battlefield rest - but I'm pretty sure we can almost guarantee it will be "luxury" flats within two years.

The staff I chatted with in the hospital were a bit pessimistic about the whole thing. They are partially looking forward to the new building - but a lot of services are going to move to the Southern General over at Govan and some people were still not sure where they'll end up working in a years time.

Whatever happens I hope that the area around the Victoria Infirmary continues to thrive. I haven't spent a lot of time over there but it seems a really nice wee community with a good mix of new deli's, coffee shops and old traditional stores run by generations of the same family.

Theres a book on sale about the old hospital available in the shop.

PS - good news I've not fractured the bones - it looks like just bruised tissue which should fix itself up in no time.