Why does Jack always get the dirty jobs?

Labour activists must wonder what on earth is going on. Ten weeks before the election, the First Minister goes out of his way (on a weekend too) to open a privately-run health facility. The BBC reports:

A controversial health centre where NHS patients will be treated by a private company has been opened.
First Minister Jack McConnell performed the official launch of the Scottish Regional Treatment Centre at Stracathro Hospital, near Brechin in Angus.
He said using the independent sector to treat NHS patients was helping reduce waiting times in Scotland.

Whatever Mr McConnell thinks about the involvement of the private sector in the NHS, surely now is not the time to be making a song and dance about it?

Meanwhile, this morning, a junior health minister gets to open a spanking new NHS facility in Edinburgh. The Evening News reports:

A NEW rehabilitation centre was set to be opened by health chiefs in Edinburgh today.
Deputy Health Minister Lewis Macdonald was unveiling NHS Lothian's new south-east Mobility and Rehabilitation Technology (SMART) centre, which will be run out of the city's Eastern General Hospital, this morning.
The £7.5 million centre has been designed to provide mobility and rehabilitation services to patients across South East Scotland and will incorporate other services currently provided at Edinburgh's Astley Ainslie and Eastern General hospitals...
The 4000 sq m building has also been designed to contain environmentally friendly features, including a recycled zinc-covered roof with a life expectancy of around 100 years, and rubber floors in the corridors produced from recycled car tyres.

Something to boast about? Tangible proof of the Executive's commitment to improving the NHS? And it's left to Lewis Macdonald? On a Monday morning?