Thought for the Week

The National Health Service this year celebrates its 70th anniversary.

In Cambuslang Parish Church members of the congregation have been telling stories about their experience of the NHS and, in some cases, reminiscing about health care before 1948.

Tales from the distant past remind us of a time when people would have recourse to traditional, often useless “cures”, rather than go to the doctor, because the fees were too high for many ordinary families. I’ve heard of tonsils removed on the kitchen table, and of people who had emergency funds hidden in the house to pay for a doctor’s visit.

The Gospels tell of Jesus meeting a woman who has been seriously ill for 12 years. She spent everything she had on a succession of doctors, but instead of getting better, she only got worse.

When Jesus heals her she is released not only from illness, but from poverty, from hopelessness. That woman’s anxieties are still experienced by many people throughout our world today.

In our own country, it is only since the National Health Service was founded that we have had the kind of security that the woman in our story longed for.

In Cambuslang Parish Church at 10.30am on October 7 we will have a special service of thanksgiving for the NHS.

As Christians we uphold the same values that the National Health Service pursues, although in different ways and everyone is welcome at our service.

Perhaps this anniversary gives us all an opportunity appreciate the work of all who are involved in health care, and to make a small gesture of appreciation to all those women and men in the NHS who make such a difference to all our lives.