It has become clear that McDonald's financial input is a once-only payment of £0.5 million. The balance of construction costs, £1.6 million, coming from Yorkhill NHS Trust and the National Lotteries Charities Board. The lottery will contribute £45,000 p.a. for 3 years towards running costs with the balance being met by fund-raising teams. McDonald's will doubtless collect all the kudos despite their minimal involvement.
While putting forward the case for disassociation with McDonald's Corp in the hostel provision, campaigners will seek assurances that the facility is not merely a prelude to McDonald's aspiration towards securing the lucrative burger branches on hospitals in the region.
Experience from other parts of the country suggests that whenever McDonald's Corp encounters local resistance to expansion on hospital facilities, that community is offered a hostel with the almost inevitable result that sites previously closed to them are granted planning permission within 2 to 5 years. McDonald's have already been rebutted by local communities within Strathclyde.
Write to Alastair Millar, Medical Director, The Sick Children's Hospital, Yorkhill, Glasgow. Demand that the McDonald's connection be rescinded. Leaving aside all other concerns (of which there is no shortage!), is he satisfied that a children's hospital trust should form a partnership with a corporation, actively promoting a diet linked to Britain's biggest killer - coronary heart disease, as well as diabetes and hypertension? Also, is this hostel a prelude to burger-shop developments on Glasgow's hospital sites? You may care to enclose our leaflets for Millar's attention.
Does he approve of McDonald's targetting of young children?