Edinburgh's Eye Pavilion: former ward sister recalls 'huge step' of bringing everything together on one site

A former ward sister who started her career at Edinburgh's Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion just as it opened says it "just doesn't make sense" to pull apart the vital services it provides and scatter them to other sites.

Anne Laing with Princess Alexandra, who opened the Eye Pavilion in 1969, when she returned to mark its 25th anniversary

Anne Laing, who counted former Prime Minister Gordon Brown among her patients, said the Scottish Government's decision not to fund a replacement for the Eye Pavilion and instead to spread eyecare around the Lothians would destroy a world-recognised centre of excellence and make life more difficult for patients.

She had just begun her training as an ophthalmic nurse when the old eye department at the Royal Infirmary moved to the newly-built Eye Pavilion in Chalmers Street in 1969.

"It was a huge step to get everyone under one roof in this new purpose-built building and be able to communicate so easily with one another; the university department was there as well, they had a good library and it was a big centre for innovation and good care.

Anne Laing pictured in the Evening News at the time of the official opening of the Eye Pavilion in October 1969

"The fact everything was there in one place meant if somebody comes in with one problem and something else is discovered they can be referred to the necessary person who's in the same building and not be shipped off somewhere else or told he'll be here in a couple of hours because he's travelling from somewhere else.”

And she said all these advantages would be lost if the government’s plan to disperse services goes ahead. “It wouldn't work,” she said. "It just doesn't make sense to have it all spread out.”

After her retirement in 2007, Ms Laing remained a regular visitor to the Eye Pavilion as secretary of its charity Eyecare, which she helped to found. And she followed with interest the proposals for a new hospital to replace the 1969 building.

“The plans were up on the wall, great excitement about it all and everything was going ahead. When I heard the news the government wasn’t going to fund it I couldn't believe it.”

Anne Laing as a ward sister at the Eye Pavilion in 1973

The government has said a new elective care centre to be built in Livingston should be among the sites where services are located in future.

But Ms Laing said: “The patients are mostly elderly and find it difficult enough sometimes to get to the Eye Pavilion let alone being shipped off here and there.

“I know a lady who was a nurse who has developed macular degeneration – shes on her own, she doesn’t have somebody who could drive her and she would find it impossible to trail all the way out to St John's for her injections.”

And Ms Laing warned the Eye Pavilion’s crucial role in training ophthalmic nurses would also be endangered. “That training just wouldn't be able to be continued if there's a bit here and a bit there.”

Eye surgeons need specialist nurses on hand in theatre during operations, she said. “The nurses who work in the operating theatre know exactly the next instrument required and what they're going to do next – if it was somebody who had come from a general theatre they would be lost. And you need them to be there for the patients too – a lot of surgery is done under local anaesthetic, so you need people who understand what's going on.”

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