Archbishop attacks chaplain cuts

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And we're not talking about a knife fighting Charlie.

 

 

Cash strapped local health authority stops paying the salaries (100K) of six chaplains in its hospitals. Archbishops goes off on one. Says "For Catholics, access to the ministry of the Church, and in particular the sacraments, is an essential part of life." He also claimed that the Human Rights Act may have been breached.

 

Would you rather 100k of your taxes be spent on this 'essential' and let’s be clear, exclusive, service or on a few more nurses?

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/5314716.stm

 

 

If this 'access to ministry' is so essential for Catholics, surely they would be happy to donate more money to the Catholic church to provide the service (let's leave aside the uncomfortable issue of the Catholic church being a bit skint at the moment after shelling out for all those child abuse cases)? Perhaps they could create some kind of insurance deal that offers 24 emergency 'access to ministry' coverage that would see a qualified chaplain rushed to the hospital bed. Same goes for any other faith group. That is very much up to them. And definitely not up to us, as taxpayers, to subsidise their particular belief system. As an atheist, would my local hospital provide a humanist counsellor? Would it provide a Satanist with some bloke decked out in horns and trotters? Should we expect it to? Haven't they got better things to spend the money on?

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I can understand and appreciate the comfort that patients and their family derive from the spiritual administrations of the clergy, including the last sacrements for dying Roman Catholics.

 

I'm not sure why these services are being paid for by a cash strapped hospital though. Does anyone know the position in Sheffield's hospitals?

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There's more:

John Rostill, Chief Executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said they had been forced to make cuts due to a projected deficit of £30 million. He said: “We propose to retain one of the chaplains at a cost of £50,000 a year. Currently the budget for chaplaincy services is £150,000 a year. This proposal will save us £100,000 a year, which equates to four nurses.

[JoeP]

Your signature indicates you have little time for religion, so it's not surprising you fel teh way you do.

 

For many people, not necessarily Catholic, having access to a Chaplain is part of the healing process - it helps them feel better, offers soem sort of spiritual support. There may not be any scientific explanation, but if it helps people feel batter about their treatment, surely it's part of the healing process.

 

Chaplains are typically multi-denominational as far as Christianity is concerned, and usually an Iman and a Rabbi are available. Humanist counsellors - what do they provide that a standard psychological counsellor wouldn't? As for Satanists - well, I'm biased and bigoted and totally hypocritical and would not want my money spent there.

 

The 100,000 is a fair amount of money - but come on, would it honestly be spent on front line care? The Chaplains are (from my own experience) quite heavily involved in the handling of relatives after the death of a patient, stuff like that. Part of the whole care process.

 

As my National Insurance contributions already get spent in ways that I might not approve of in various NHS Trusts around the UK - modern art, statues, high tech scanners without the people to properly run them - if they wanted to spend some of my dosh on this I wouldn't mind too much.

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A rock has been lifted methinks:

http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/nhs-knowledge_base/data/5312.html

and here:

http://www.jobs.nhs.uk/cgi-bin/advsearch

 

Just how much does this cost the NHS a year? A small hospital? An ICU? 20 doctors? 2000 operations? Whatever the cost, it's too much.

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I'm biased and bigoted and totally hypocritical

 

you said it

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The 100,000 is a fair amount of money - but come on, would it honestly be spent on front line care? .

 

See quote above...four nurses.

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For many people, not necessarily Catholic, having access to a Chaplain is part of the healing process - it helps them feel better, offers soem sort of spiritual support. .

 

Fine, let them pay for it.

[JoeP]

There's more:

John Rostill, Chief Executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said they had been forced to make cuts due to a projected deficit of £30 million. He said: “We propose to retain one of the chaplains at a cost of £50,000 a year. Currently the budget for chaplaincy services is £150,000 a year. This proposal will save us £100,000 a year, which equates to four nurses.

 

100,000 out of 30 million. 0.3% of the money they have to find. The distress to patients who may not have relatives, or who may not be able to contact them in time when they're dying or requiring support from their Faith, will probably cause health issues that will easily cost that amount in the year.

 

Of course they'll equate it to nurses - but whether the money will go there, I wouldn't be sure.

 

Look at the figures here. To retain 1 chaplain is still going to cost 50,000. If we assume that by binning the 6 they're basically saviing salaries and some element of 'on' costs, that means that of that 50,000 approximately 16,600 is salary, unless they're giving the one remaining a pay rise. The rest - 34,000 - is some sort of overhead.

[JoeP]

See quote above...four nurses.

 

No, it EQUATES to 4 nurses - that does not mean that they'll SPEND it on 4 nurses.

 

And as for the patients paying for it - again, and by the same argument you expressed above, it can easily be argued that they HAVE paid for it as part of their own Tax and National Insurance.