STATES Members are to be asked for the money the Island’s health and social services need to develop in line with Western countries or be prepared to see it go downhill.
One of the options president Senator Stuart Syvret will be suggesting is that £2 million from the £21 million annual interest on the Rainy Day Fund is given annually to Health and Social Services for a few years to ensure it keeps up with modern practice in the Western world.Senator Syvret said the service would be likely to be left with just 0.6 per cent growth for 2005 after the current Fundamental Spending Review even though an independent review said that between five and seven per cent was needed.At a recent committee meeting the decision was made to take a proposition to the House seeking minimum budget growth for next year of three per cent after wages and inflation.Senator Syvret said that three per cent was the very minimum that the committee could operate with if the service was not to go into the type of crisis that the public would soon notice.That decline would be in the form of service cuts or the introduction of costs for certain services which the public expected to be provided free of charge.
Article posted on 26th March, 2004 - 12.00am
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