THE promise of a £500,000 allocation for Galway Hospice - more than two years after it was built by voluntary subscription - has raised hopes that the struggle to open the 12-bed facility is nearing an end. But it also raises interesting comparisons between the way hospices in Galway, Limerick and Sligo are treated.
First, a health warning. I have a personal interest in this story as my partner has recently been working with Galway Hospice's home care team. Like most people in the city, I believe the hospice is doing good work and should be properly funded.
News of the funding allocation for Galway received more public notice last week than the announcement, just a few days before Christmas, that Milford Hospice in Limerick was to get £2.5 million for a 75 bed unit. Few people outside Munster heard the news.
Perhaps, in the pre Christmas hurly burly, the press release from the Department of Health slipped through a crack in the fax machines of the national media because the story only surfaced in the local press and the Examiner.
At the time the local TD and Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, described his own announcement as "tremendous news" for the ill and dependent elderly of Limerick. It followed 18 months of consultations between the Mid Western Health Board and the Little Company of Mary, the religious order which runs the hospice.
The plan is to build a "palliative" care unit of 30 beds, to care for cancer patients who are dying, and a convalescent/long term unit with 45 beds. The existing hospice building will be adapted for use as a day care facility.
A spokeswoman for the Department denies that Limerick is getting more favourable treatment because it is in Mr Noonan's constituency. She points out that the funding for the hospice there was granted following a proposal submitted by the Mid Western Health Board. The Western Health Board has submitted no such proposal for Galway.
"If there is a problem it is between the hospice and the health board. They have to come to an agreement about the service they are going to provide. There isn't that problem in Limerick," she says.
In fairness to the Department it does appear that the Western, Health Board and Galway Hospice are finding it difficult to come to an agreement. They will meet today to thrash out the issues.
Discussions between the two parties have been going on since last summer. The first chink of light for the hospice came last year when the Minister promised it £100,000. That money has not been released, pending agreement between the health board and the hospice.
Both sides refuse to comment publicly on their differences. But the hospice is disappointed it hasn't got the full £1.2 million it says is needed to open and run the 12 bed unit. The health board is understood to favour opening it with six beds in the hope that more funding can be provided later.
The chairman of the hospice board, Mr Padhraic O Conghaile, says he looks forward to meeting the health board "to consolidate their plans" for palliative care.
"Palliative care is now part of every health service internationally," he says. "The EU has emphasised it, the Department has requested each health board to submit plans on how they are developing palliative care services, and we would hope that out of these discussions a comprehensive plan for palliative care would come about."
Another unusual angle is the way people in Galway heard the news about the £500,000 allocation last week. The good news did not come from a local Fine Gael TD, as you might expect in an election year, but from the Minister's partner at the Cabinet table, Mr Michael D. Higgins.
It has met a mixed response in the city. Part of the reason for this is the suspicion that it was a well timed move to defuse growing anger about the hospice in advance of the election. It is an emotional issue in Galway where every week up to 6,000 people pay £1 into a draw to keep the existing home care service going, and where the public donated £2 million to build the hospice building.
The farming community has also weighed in with a voluntary levy on each beast sold at marts in the county.
In Sligo, meanwhile, a promise of £400,000 for a much smaller hospice has been enthusiastically welcomed. Earlier differences between the North West Hospice and the North Western Health Board have been overcome and the hospice is now set to open later this year With three or possibly four beds.
Last year Mr Noonan visited the hospice building and promised his support. He has been as good as his word. The hospice is "extremely happy" at the £400,000 allocation, according to a staff officer, Mr Eugene McGloin. He says it is a major breakthrough as up to now the hospice has survived on public donations and a few crumbs from the National Lottery.