Sir, Your correspondent Marie Shortt (September 28th) wondered whether requests by next of kin in death notices for donations to charitable causes in lieu of flowers are ever followed through. Our charity receives hundreds of such donations each year. In 1996 these donations have come from France, the United States and many from England, plus Ireland and the north west region.
We publish a memorial list each two months of all deceased for whom donations have been made - not all necessarily deaths from advanced cancer. Your correspondent will be heartened to learn, for instance, that in the recent two month period, we received a total of £1,094.07 in kind memory of 24 deceased persons.
The position is similar, elsewhere, and given the continued absence of appropriate State investment in hospice services especially, the generosity of the general public is deeply, deeply felt both in the giving and receiving of such donations. These are particularly appreciated in the hospice movement. It was a similar small bequest by a postwar member of the Jewish faith in London to Dame Cecily Saunders, DBE, with the aspiration to continue the type of holistic care the person had received which has since given rise to the world wide modern hospice movement.
Finally, regarding your correspondent's suggestion for a special card to mark donations, all donors to North West Hospice receive a memorial card, nondenominational, which they may use to send to bereaved or next of kin. It would be our view that the most direct and immediately beneficial way to make such donations to a charitable cause are to its registered local address, or to give it to a relative. - Yours, etc.,
North West Hospice,
10 Stephen Street,
Sligo.