ROW OVER HOSPITAL SERVICES

HOSPITAL in North
London, which has forbidden religious services in its wards, is involved in a major clash between Catholic. Anglican and Free Church hospital chaplains and the Ministry of Health.
Mr. Robinson, the Minister, told the chaplains that the decision was up to the management committee. But in a letter to the Whittington Hospital, Highgate, he supported the view that services should not
be held in the wards.
The Rev. Leslie Day, Free Church chaplain at the hospital, described the Minister's reply as "an evasion of responsibility." He added: "The time has come for the Churches to protest utterly and completely to the Government for the interference with the work of State hospital chaplains."
Sunday services in the wards were banned by the hospital group management committee on the advice of the medical committee run by the hospital's doctors. Mr. Robert Bryant, the group secretary, said: "Open services are not conducive to the medical treatment of the patients.
"They are also a disturbance to the seriously ill and an offence to patients not of the Christian Faith."
Arrangements had been made for chapel services for walking patients, for relaying services through bedside earphones, and for visits by chaplains to those who wanted them.