St Saviour’s Medical Charity in Hythe

In this issue we feature a truly local charity, one that was, quite literally, born and bred in Hythe. It is an “Endowment Charity”, that is to say that it raises the cash needed for its good works from investment rather than through Flag Day appeals. Its operating expenses are extremely low, around 5% of income and so a very high proportion of the income received goes directly to good works.

The Charity has two main objectives:

1) To provide grants to long term local residents enabling them to obtain rapid private medical treatment in situations where they are suffering extreme loss of quality of life as a direct result of extended NHS waiting lists.
Such grants are made in part or in full depending on the financial circumstances of the applicant. The Charity helps around 60 local residents each year in this way. It should be stressed that these grants should not be regarded as a routine way to obtain treatment from the private sector rather than the NHS. Extreme medical and financial necessity will be among the criteria against which all applications are judged.

2) To improve the quality of medical care for the people who live in Hythe and the surrounding area.
It does this by making grants to Institutions that provide such medical care enabling them to purchase equipment and services to further their work. Among the recipients of grants in this category, typically, have been the William Harvey Hospital Cancer Day Care Centre and Full Body Scanner Appeal, Pilgrims Hospice to fund home palliative nurses, Mid Kent Portage to provide learning equipment for handicapped children and Headway East Kent for furniture and staff costs.

Tagged as: charity, Health, Health care, hythe