Pastoral care cost

I believe reports of a crisis in our NHS may have been greatly exaggerated.

Currently, NHS Orkney is advertising for a spiritual care lead/chaplain in a salary band of £31,696 to £41,787, plus benefits no doubt, pro rata for an 18.75 hour week.

This reminded me that three years ago Dumfries & Galloway NHS were recruiting a director of spiritual care on a salary range of £55,548 to £68,484 for a 37.5 hour week.

I have no problem with people receiving spiritual or pas- toral care in hospitals, but why does a financially distressed health service have to pay for this out of the ever-decreasing health budget while religious institutions sit on great wealth?

In your April 4 edition last year, for example, you reported that the Church of Scotland owned land and buildings capitalised at a figure north of £500 million and it remunerates its clergy as well as providing them with homes.

The wealth of the Scottish Catholic Church is much more of a secret, but I imagine it’s far from falling on hard times.

Nevertheless, you reported on 21 October, 2013 that NHS Lothian had entered into a “service level agreement” with the arch diocese of st andrews and Edinburgh to provide outof-hours spiritual care at a cost of £30,000 a year, largely to ensure critically ill Catholics are read their last rites.

Is it no longer part of the paid job description (or indeed vocation) of priests and reverends to attend to their flocks in times of distress, during office hours or otherwise?

ALISTAIR MCBAY National Secular Society Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh