St Chad's Church
Giving & Caring
Charities...Eco-congregation...Gifting ...Stewardship
St Chad's Church |
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St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy Back in the late 19th century, many of the clergy suffered great poverty and had to resort to workhouse hospitals when they fell ill. Canon William Cooper (a former missionary) and his wife were horrified that those who had spent their lives caring for others should be abandoned in this way. They founded St Luke's Hostel and Nursing Home in London in 1895 in an attempt to alleviate the problem. Two years later they moved to larger premises and in 1907 they opened the new Hostel of St Luke's in Fitzroy Square , just off Euston Road . The hospital, now named St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy, is still in the same premises. St Luke's is not a private hospital (though it does take a few paying non-clergy patients to supplement its income from charitable donations). It is a charitable hospital, one of the few still in existence. It provides free consultation and treatment for Anglican clergy and their dependants, whether from this country or abroad, to enable them to return to their ministries as soon as possible. In the last hundred years over 100,000 patients have been treated. In an average year, about 10% of the patients come from overseas. |
Over 200 senior surgeons and physicians (many not even Christians) give their skills and experience to the hospital without charge, a contribution worth almost £2 million annually. Nevertheless it costs about £5,000 a day to keep the hospital running. In the past the hospital's income was mainly from Anglican parishes and individuals, especially those in the south of the country, from where, naturally, most of the patients come. In recent years, though, the Hospital has increased awareness in other regions of its services, and now almost 50% of patients come from outside the south-east, though the number of parishes supporting the Hospital continues to fall. Fees from the private non-clergy patients are essential to make up the shortfall from donations. Last year St Luke's underwent a thoroughgoing modernisation, costing almost £3 million, to upgrade the facilities to meet the demands of modern healthcare and to perform more operations of greater complexity. A new Physiotherapy Unit, Day Care Centre, and more consulting rooms have been added. St Luke's now provides spacious and modern wards (with never a trace of MRSA or C. diff.), offering world-class care to patients. For more information about St. Luke's visit their website: |
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