Outcry over plans to charge patients at hospice

Scotland's leading Catholic hospice faces an ethical crisis after it emerged that changes to its funding arrangements could force it to means test patients, writes Brian Morton.

St Margaret of Scotland in Clydebank is currently supported by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde as well as through fundraising, but new regulations could see it reclassified as a care home meaning that patients will be means tested. As a care home, St Margaret’s would also have to send patients to a mainstream hospital if was decided they needed specialist medical care.

A special public meeting of West Dunbartonshire Council was called for this week after it became clear some patients would be asked to pay for their hospice care. Independent councillor Denis Agnew, who called for the meeting, said that St Margaret’s ethos of supplying expert care to those in need would be “destroyed” by the new arrangements.

He added: “These were the principles of the Daughters of Charity who founded it 66 years ago. To provide help without discrimination; to be open to all regardless of religion or riches.”

A senior member of the board of trustees who spoke to The Tablet described the situation as “highly complex” but also “completely perverse”, accusing the Scottish Government of “putting its hands behind its back” over the issue and allowing an over-literal interpretation of guidelines issued with new legislation.

Edward McGuigan, vice-chair of the board, said that the changes were part of a wider “dumbing down” of palliative care that threatened to compromise the expert end-of-life care offered at St Margaret of Scotland. Other supporters of the hospice who preferred not to be named suggested that the proposals would at best lead to bed-blocking in mainstream hospitals and at worst blur the line between appropriate care and assisted dying.