What would you pay for Murder?

A news reports on Sky News caught my eye today.

The report was about a hospital in the UK, which is taking the National Health Service to court over plans to stop it from performing surgical operating procedures on children with heart defects. “Hospital Tackles NHS In Child Op Dispute” was the title of the report on Sky News.

The story highlights that by closing down the cardiac surgery unit, it would, as a consequence, inevitably lead to the closure of the paediatric intensive care unit at the hospital. In addition, other services that depend on the ICU, such as the diagnosis and treatment of complex lung diseases, would then also come under threat.

What I found really astonishing was the statement from Teresa Moss, a Director of the NHS, regarding this matter: “Many people will quite frankly find it astonishing that taxpayers' money is being used so inappropriately at a time of financial austerity in the health service.”

I don’t know what the costs are to the NHS in respect of this hospital. I do however agree with her that in the current economic times financial austerity is a must. I did however see stats regarding abortions in England and Wales. The NHS reports that there are on average 195,000 abortions in England and Wales alone each year. That’s 534 abortions taking place on each and every day of the year.

A NHS website reports that an abortion could cost anything from £500 to £2000. If we assume that the cost to the NHS is always only £500 per abortion, then the annual cost of abortions in England and Wales alone, is no less than £97,5 million per annum. (That’s about R1,23 billion.)

So I have to ask myself. Is Teresa Moss from the NHS therefore suggesting that taxpayers will, in these tough economic times, find it less astonishing that the NHS is spending £267,123 per day, of the taxpayers hard earned money, doing this, 

instead of using their taxes to fund the cost of a surgical unit that could do this?

You decide . . .