Since 2019 more than 20 National Health Service (NHS) trusts have spent £46,000 ($62,617) of taxpayers’ money on LGBT rainbow crossings.
Despite four out of five NHS bosses previously stating that they believe a lack of government funding poses a medium or high risk to patient safety — even though Britain’s socialised National Health Service received £136.1 billion in 2021/22 — during the coronavirus pandemic hospital bosses still decided to spend tens of thousands in taxpayers’ money to paint rainbow zebra crossings dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust spent £11,000 alone on four rainbow crossings as Britain faced lockdowns and heavy restrictions in 2020-2021, the Daily Mail reports.
When questioned why they stumped up £2,780 for repainting an LGBT+ crossing in 2021, Nottinghamshire Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust declared that it was the “latest addition to the trust’s equality, diversity and inclusivity agenda”.
The Sherwood Trust justified their move by referencing a 2018 paper from far-left LGBT charity Stonewall which claimed that “one in seven LGBT people, including more than a third of trans people, have avoided [medical] treatment for fear of prejudice”.
Speaking to Breitbart London, GB News host Darren Grimes lambasted the socialised healthcare providers for their decision to install the LGBT crossings, saying the NHS should be focusing on hiring more “doctors and nurses” over the “ideological bureaucrats” who are behind diversity schemes like the rainbow crossings.
“NHS hospitals spent tens of thousands of pounds painting rainbow pedestrian crossings which make life difficult for the visually impaired. Is anyone else pretty damn sick of hearing NHS managers plead bankruptcy whilst they abuse taxpayer cash like this on woke virtue signalling?” Grimes asked.
Grimes, who is gay himself, also criticised the NHS’s decision to waste taxpayers’ money on “hiring a fleet of “Diversity Managers”.
Some hospitals have U-turned on their decision to install the LGBT rainbow crossings, with Belfast Health and Social Care Trust removing two of them — but only after spending £2,824 of taxpayer’s money painting them.
Conservative MP Sir John Hayes in comments to the Daily Mail branded the painting of these crossings as “disgraceful” and suggested that “the idea a gay person would be more likely to go to hospital if they were in need of care because of the colour of a crossing – if it wasn’t so disturbing, it would be the stuff of a Monty Python sketch”.
The NHS has also spent taxpayers’ money on hiring multiple ‘Net Zero managers’ where current job adverts offer up to £108,075 ($147,058) for the role of ‘Head of Innovation and Sustainability and £63,862 ($86,897) for the role of ‘Senior Net Zero Manager’.