ALL credit is due to the League of Friends for their recent efforts in raising £50,000 to buy ultrasound equipment for Ludlow Community Hospital.
But is it right that hard working tax payers should have to contribute to the provision of such essential equipment?
This is reminiscent of the situation prior to the establishment of the NHS when voluntary hospitals had to organise fetes and other money-raising events simply to keep their local hospital open.
The Friends' efforts also show a touching faith that the Ludlow Community Hospital will forever remain a local facility.
The property is no longer owned by the NHS but by a private company which might well, in the future, find more profitable uses for it.
And the fact that facilities have been provided by private fundraising does not protect them against operating decisions made by the Clinical Commissioning Group.
The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital benefited from fundraising which provided the Rainbow Room for children but now paediatric services are provided in Telford and the unit has closed.
The Lingen Davies Cancer Unit could well suffer the same fate.
The NHS has been under-funded since 2010, hence the justification for the Future Fit programme.
The NHS costs more than £100 billion to run but according to research carried out by Kevin Farnsworth, a senior lecturer at York University (reported in the Guardian on July 8) taxpayer’s money to the tune of £93 billion in the form of grants, subsidies and tax breaks is going to businesses each year.
It’s not a question of there being no money, but more a question of priorities.
JANET FINNEY
Bringewood Road, Ludlow