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The Archbishop of Armagh was at a special service on Sunday celebrating three decades of care by the Northern Ireland Hospice. The service was held on Sunday at St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, and was led by the Dean, the Very Reverend John Mann. The leaders of the four main Churches in Northern Ireland came together in a presentation of candles representing the 28 years of the life of the NI Hospice. The Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Dr Richard Clarke, offered a personal reflection during the service. He gave thanks in particular for the ministry at St Brigid's Hospice on the Curragh of Kildare, which cared for his wife Linda during the final days of her life.
Pray: for the hospice movement and that the support given by the church and Christians will continue to be a blessing to those who are in need. (Ps.8:4)
More: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/archbishop.praises.hospice.movement/32270.htm
Efforts by the British government to bring legal abortion by ‘bureaucratic stealth’ into Northern Ireland will be met with a full legal challenge by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). The High Court in Belfast has granted leave to SPUC to launch a challenge after the Department of Health, without explanation, reissued medical practice guidelines that had been rejected by the High Court for violating the province’s abortion laws, reports Hilary White at LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). For three years the guidelines have been the focus of an intense battle in Northern Ireland, where abortion remains a crime, between the pro-life movement and pro-abortion forces in the British government. SPUC’s Liam Gibson told LSN, ‘At present it's difficult to tell whether our case will be overtaken by events, but the department is hell-bent on pushing its abortion guidance forward no matter what happens.’ Pray: that any changes to the abortion guidelines in NI are fully and openly debated to protect the rights of unborn children. (Pr.10:9)
The Department of Health is acting after reports that over 1,000 people have starved to death in NHS hospitals in past four years. The Sunday Express said figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that for every patient who dies from malnutrition, four more have dehydration mentioned on their death certificate. In 2011, 43 patients starved to death and 291 died in a state of severe malnutrition, the newspaper said, while the number of patients discharged from hospital suffering from malnutrition doubled to 5,558. A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Every NHS patient should expect to be looked after properly in hospital. It is completely unacceptable if patients go hungry or are malnourished. and they have increased the number of unannounced inspections by the care watchdog to tackle the issue. "We are also investing £100m on IT so nurses can spend more time with patients, not paperwork.
Pray: for response to this issue that will ensure it becomes a tragedy of the past. (Ps.8:4)
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/03/nhs-watchdog-malnutrition-hospitals
Wide-ranging reforms of the National Health Service will be recommended by a public inquiry into serious failings of care at Stafford Hospital. The £11 million review of what went wrong at Stafford Hospital between January 2005 and March 2009 will suggest hospitals that cover up mistakes by doctors and poor treatment of patients should face fines and possible closure, the Sunday Times said. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said that the NHS needed a "change of culture. Patients must never be treated as numbers but as human beings, indeed human beings at their frailest and most vulnerable," he wrote. "A culture of targets and performance management defined the NHS under Labour - with the unintended and tragic consequence that organisations cared more about meeting top down targets than focusing on the needs of patients."
Pray: for all NHS staff most of whom work hard and professionally. Where deficiencies arise pray that they can be addressed quickly. (Rev.21:4)
More: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wideranging-nhs-reforms-to-be-recommended-by-report-into-scandalhit-stafford-hospital-8439947.html
Serious failures in standards of care at Stafford General Hospital are evidence that the "marketisation of the health service has gone too far", two bishops have warned. The Bishop of Lichfield, the Right Reverend Jonathan Gledhill, and the Bishop of Stafford, the Right Reverend Geoff Annas, made the comments in the Church Times in response to an inquiry into the death of 66-year-old Gillian Astbury at the hospital in 2007. Bishop Gledhill said the investigation into the hospital had been a "long and terrible time for the people of Stafford", particularly the relatives of those who had died "unnecessarily and suffered". He said people should "not be afraid to go to their local hospital", but also expressed sympathy for NHS workers who have "borne the weight of cuts and reductions". He called for a return to the Christian values that inspired the creation of the NHS.
Pray: for a return to the Christian values that once underpinned the NHS as a caring organisation. (Gal.5:22)
More: http://www.christiantoday.co.uk/article/nhs.must.return.to.christian.basis.bishops/31650.htm
Assisted suicide is illegal in the UK, but on the 10th anniversary of the first British citizen visiting Dignitas a senior NHS consultant claimed doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds. Professor Patrick Pullicino said hospitals use a controversial ‘death pathway’ (equivalent to euthanasia) when there was no clear evidence for initiating a method of care designed for use when death is imminent. ‘Far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the pathway and it had now become an assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway.’ The professor revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the pathway to be successfully treated and then live a further 14 months.
Pray: that this issue will continue to be highlighted in the media until action is taken to implement more appropriate techniques of care for those terminally ill in NHS hospitals. (Mat.25:36)
Hospital chaplains play an ‘important’ role in the NHS, and the Government values their work, a Conservative Peer has said. Speaking in the House of Lords, Earl Howe said the Government is committed to giving patients and staff in the NHS access to ‘spiritual care’. Chaplains came under fierce attack from secularists last year who launched a campaign to remove their funding. Earl Howe said the chaplains ‘play an important part in providing high-quality spiritual care services to patients and staff, and we are committed to ensuring that patients and staff in the NHS have access to the spiritual care that they want, whatever faith they may have’. The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Revd John Hind, had earlier pointed out that ‘a chaplain often serves more patients directly each week than any other single healthcare professional working in a hospital’. Pray: for hospital chaplains and that their valuable services will be secure in the future. (Jas.5:15) More: http://www.christian.org.uk/news/govt-affirms-importance-of-nhs-chaplains-work/
The Government's NHS reform bill could increase the dangers facing vulnerable children, according to a survey of the risk assessments produced by primary care trusts in response to the legislation. The analysis of the risk assessments drawn up by the 54 PCTs, the organisations that manage and pay for patient care in England, found children in danger of being physically abused could suffer because of problems and weaknesses caused by the restructuring. They claim child protection procedures are threatened by issues such as fragmentation between new organisations that are being created in the shake-up, making it hard for staff to swap information about sensitive or complicated cases where there is suspicion of neglect or abuse by relatives or carers. The danger is classified as a 'possible' risk which, if it occurred, would have 'catastrophic' consequences. Any such failings may mean that the NHS organisations concerned were in breach of their legal duties to protect at-risk children.
Pray: for a review of this matter and that, at the very least, proper safeguards are put in place to protect vulnerable children. (Ps.12:5)
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/04/nhs-health-bill-child-protection-risks
A new NHS campaign is being launched today asking the church to increase the number of blood and organ donors in the UK. The Fleshandblood campaign is sponsored by Give.net and has the support of the Church of England, The Salvation Army, Methodist Church, United Reformed Church, Baptist Union, Hope and the Evangelical Alliance. Christians will be encouraged to donate blood regularly as part of their personal giving within churches. Lorna Williamson, Medical Director of NHS Blood and Transplant says, “All major faith groups support donation in the spirit of giving and we’re excited to explore this in more detail by working with the Christian church. "By raising awareness amongst its members and community about the daily need for blood transfusions and organ transplants across the NHS, we hope to banish myths, educate people and encourage blood and organ donation.
Pray: that this new campaign will encourage those who are willing, to respond positively to the call to donate. (Ac.20:35)
More: http://www.christiantoday.co.uk/article/nhs.campaign.asks.christians.to.give.blood/31532.htm
This week saw the publication of English Heritage’s first national survey of England's places of worship. This documents the state of 14,500 church buildings from Gothic Anglican confections to nonconformist chapels and Quaker meeting houses. The survey found that fewer than half are in fair or good condition, while ten per cent are at risk of dereliction. While heritage campaigners understandably lament the demise of beautiful, historic buildings, an emerging form of religious life beyond buildings tells a rather different story. This is a tale of change and transformation - one which necessarily involves a degree of pain and loss - out of which church communities are forging a different relationship to the bricks and mortar which traditionally lies at the heart of Christianity in Britain. Examples are offered in the survey of new models of worship, many letting go of the idea that the physical place in which 'church' takes place is somehow uniquely sacrosanct, to be reserved for religious purposes only. Pray: that God’s voice is heard where two or three come together. (Mt.18:20) More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jun/30/religion-church-buildings-change-decay