We recently told the story of the railway enthusiast who discovered that railway carriages are being carried by lorry and ferry all the way from Dublin to Germany to be repainted because, presumably, nobody in Ireland, Wales or England can be trusted to wield a paintbrush these days.
Now it seems we can't do our own smalls either.
Early every morning a huge lorry pulls up to a loading bay at the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital.
Where has it come from? Holland.
What does it carry? Laundry.
Yes, that's right. Despite the fact that there are two other hospitals in Norwich with adequate laundry facilities, and despite the fact that in the nineties the laundry at the West Norwich Hospital was modernised with new machinery only to have it all removed a few short years later, the Norfolk & Norwich now sends all its laundry, every day, to Holland to be washed.
We're sure that this is all to do with obtaining the best possible value for money, and not with the fact that the boss of the company that has the N&N cleaning contract has a family member who runs a Dutch laundry.
The GOS says: Not sure why we should find this story so surprising. In 2006 the Eastern Daily Press reported that this same hospital was going to send patients' notes to India for typing.
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Copyright © 2008 The GOS
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