What do we expect in return when we give to charity?

NEWS that major vascular surgery is to move from Salisbury to Bournemouth has prompted understandable speculation about which other services might in future be transferred to some ‘regional hub’ miles away.
That’s a subject for another day. But here’s a related thought.
When the plot to shut down Hillcote, our respite home for handicapped children, was being hatched, did anyone take account of the input of local people into this facility?
Some £30,000 was collected for a minibus and a specially-equipped quiet room.
What happens to this stuff if the closure goes ahead? Are they planning to flog it off on ebay? Cart it all up to Devizes? Or just scrap it?
Whatever the answer, what message does it send to the fundraisers who worked so hard?
Now we are in the final throes of a huge appeal for a CT scanner. All over the area people of goodwill have been busting a gut to raise £650,000. That's brilliant.
Would they have devoted quite so much time and energy to buying a scanner based in Southampton or Basingstoke? I’m not knocking, just asking.
We pay for these things gladly, because we think they will be there to help us, our friends and our loved ones as well as the wider local community in our hour of need. And because we think our hospital is great.But these are times of upheaval for public services, and there can’t be guarantees that any piece of kit, or indeed any department, will remain here.I'm not saying we shouldn’t give to good causes. Of course we should, and to forestall criticism, I’ll tell you that I am a member of a charity committee.
But experience suggests that we should be wary of subsidising what our taxes ought to be buying.
We can’t expect the state to provide everything for us any longer, and we will all have to become more self-reliant.
But in the interests of social cohesion, the public must have a meaningful part to play in deciding what happens to publicly-owned assets.
People with power over our lives need to understand that ‘give and take’ is what makes any relationship work.
And it doesn’t just mean that we give, while they take away when they feel like it.