Clydebank Post | Opinion | Accept hospice decision

Monday, 13th October, 2008

Published: Wednesday, 28th May, 2008 10:05

Accept hospice decision

WHEN people try to get their way by scare tactics, one can usually assume that they have failed to do so by reasoned argument.

Take the ongoing St Margaret’s Hospice campaign to retain funding for 30 medical beds for frail, elderly patients.

After a review in 2004, the health board is proposing to transfer these beds to Blawarthill Hospital.

An Archdiocesan pastoral letter tried to make this a pro-life issue by claiming that this transfer would hasten the day when euthanasia would be practised in homes for the elderly.

This is not only ridiculous, but must have been gratuitously offensive to many health professionals working with the elderly, not least those at Blawarthill Hospital.

Then again we are told that without this funding, the hospice will close altogether.

I have written to the Scottish Health secretary, and as far as I can see, neither she nor the health board has any such plan.

Indeed, negotiations are continuing as to an alternative use for the hospice beds.

Is this the real issue behind the hospice campaign?

I have heard hospice activists muttering darkly that the health board might decide to place social care patients in the hospice, or however unlikely, even drug abusers. Social care patients might not be the preferred option for the hospice, but at least they would guarantee it would stay open ad infinitum.

As Christ said: “The poor you will have always with you.”

These are the people — the marginalised and deprived, with few options in life — of whom Christ also said: “Whatever you do to the least of these my servants, you do to me”.

I see that Sister Rita Dawson, the chief executive of the hospice, is taking her campaign to Downing Street.

She had better not use the pro-life argument with Gordon Brown, when he alone of the party leaders is forcing his MPs, including the Catholics in his cabinet, to vote for human-animal embryo experimentation.

That could be an awkward one.

All this comes down to a judgement about the best use of scarce resources for the general public good.

The health board, unlike Sister Rita, has the results of an objective study which has indicated that the best place for these publicly-funded beds is Blawarthill Hospital.

When one cuts through the brouhaha of petitions and the mass-circulated letters to this one and that, what proof have we that this represents anything more than Sister Rita, naturally enough, defending her own territory?

Of course she believes that her hospice offers the best care for the money; but she would say that, wouldn’t she?

I think it is time for the good sister to set an example of Christian resignation to us all, and accept what the health board decides.

If that means social care beds in the hospice, she should console herself that she has been given a heaven-sent opportunity to minister to those closest to her Lord.

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