Bernard Place on Healthcare.

 Bernard Place argues in the JEP that charging patients for non-urgent Emergency Department (ED) visits to reduce overcrowding addresses the wrong issue. While Health Minister Tom Binet suggested this to deter "inappropriate attendance" and redirect patients to GPs, data shows that crowding is actually driven by "exit block" rather than excessive inflow.

The main points of the article include:

• The Complexity of Demand: Modern EDs do not manage simple cases; they handle an ageing population with complex, long-term conditions (like dementia, frailty, and sepsis) requiring extensive assessment and systemic flow.
• The Flaw of "Inappropriate" Labels: Classifying a visit as "minor" is a retrospective clinical judgment. Patients make prospective decisions based on a rational fear of symptoms (e.g., chest pain) without the benefit of diagnostic tools. Good public policy should not penalize people for acting rationally.
• The "Exit Block" Reality: EDs struggle primarily because too few people are able to leave, not because too many arrive. When inpatient beds are full, or community care packages and nursing home placements are unavailable, the entire hospital system backs up like traffic on a blocked avenue.
• System-Wide Solutions: Narrowing the front door via fees does not create sustained reductions in demand. Instead, the solution lies in optimizing the whole system to achieve "zero length of stay". This involves aligning beds, diagnostics, and discharge planning so patients move smoothly back into the community.

Place concludes that Jersey's Health and Care Partnership Board and Advisory Board must focus on systemic integration—such as affordable same-day primary care and better discharge pathways—rather than penalizing the front door.

More Short Stories: Sancti Venite: A Lammas Discovery

Another short story, this one based on the hymn "Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord" and how it came to be written, lost, discovered and translated to English.

Sancti Venite: A Lammas Discovery

In 1851, John Mason Neale pored over an ancient Latin text. He was studying Muratori’s published “Anecdota Latina” volumes on this one hymn. He knew the story well, and he would recast the hymn in an English idiom, so that the ancient words could breathe again in a modern church setting. And as he translated, he reflected and marvelled at the story of how it had nearly been lost and had been rediscovered, almost by chance, but perhaps more so by God’s providence. And in his mind’s eye, he imagined Ludovico Antonio Muratori finding the manuscript.

Ludovico Antonio Muratori sat in the hushed stillness of the Ambrosian Library, the lamps casting warm pools of light across the long oak table. Outside, Milan simmered in the late‑summer heat of 1695, but here, among manuscripts, dust motes, and the faint scent of vellum,he felt suspended in time. Before him lay a small, weather‑worn parchment codex, its binding fragile, its pages unevenly darkened by centuries of travel. He had opened it expecting a minor liturgical fragment. Instead, he found a voice from a world long vanished, deeply buried within the library’s massive collection of ancient texts .

Sancti venite, Christi corpus sumite…

The words rose from the page like a chant half‑remembered. Muratori whispered them aloud, tasting their cadence. They were simple, direct, and profoundly Eucharistic, an invitation to draw near, to take the Body of the Lord, to drink the holy Blood poured out. Yet beneath their simplicity he sensed an older rhythm, something shaped by the rugged spirituality of Ireland’s early church.

Draw near and take the body of your Lord,
and drink the holy blood for you outpoured.
Saved by his body and his holy blood,
with souls refreshed we give our thanks to God.

Muratori closed his eyes and imagined the hymn in its birthplace: the monastery at Bangor, perched on the edge of the Irish Sea. He pictured monks in rough woollen habits gathering at dawn, their voices rising in the dim light as they approached the altar. Bread, made from the grain of their own fields, was lifted high. The hymn was not merely sung; it was lived. It sanctified the daily labour of sowing, harvesting, and baking. It turned the ordinary into the holy.

Muratori’s fingers rested lightly on the page. He knew the history: that dreadful year of 824 AD when the great monastery at Bangor was sacked and destroyed by Viking raiders. Monks fled and carried the book across Europe for safety. The community was scattered . Yet someone, some nameless monk, had taken this antiphonary and fled into the night. He imagined him clutching the manuscript beneath his cloak as longships loomed on the horizon, the smoke of Bangor rising behind him.

The codex must have travelled by ship, by cart, by hand, passed from monastery to monastery, perhaps carried by pilgrims who never knew its worth. It rested for a while safely kept at the famous Bobbio Abbey in northern Italy, a monastery originally founded by the Irish missionary Saint Columbanus. And then : Cardinal Federigo Borromeo founded the Ambrosian Library in Milan. He rowed through Italy buying up historical library collections, transferring the manuscript from Bobbio to Milan.

Muratori was working as a young, newly appointed research librarian at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. He was specifically hunting through the library's unedited, ancient manuscript vaults to find forgotten historical documents. The library was packed with boxes of texts transferred decades earlier from old monasteries like Bobbio Abbey. And there it had sat undisturbed on the shelves for nearly a century until he found it. At once he recognised the Insular script which was a style unique to early Irish monks. He held a hymn of praise in his hands and a victory hard won.

Christ our Redeemer, God’s eternal Son,
has by his cross and blood the vict’ry won.
He gave his life for greatest and for least,
himself the off’ring and himself the priest.

A hymn born in Ireland, carried across seas, hidden from raiders, preserved by generations of monks, now rediscovered in the Ambrosian Library. It felt like a small miracle.

Lammas Day approached, “Loaf‑Mass”, the blessing of first fruits. Muratori had always loved its symbolism: the first bread of the harvest offered to God, a Christian sanctification of older rites that once honoured the grain spirits and the turning of the seasons.

The Church had not erased those customs; it had transformed them. Bread that once belonged to pagan feasts now became Eucharistic bread, lifted in thanksgiving to God. The Sancti Venite, with its quiet insistence on drawing near to Christ’s table, seemed perfectly suited to Lammas, its pledges of salvation in the bread and wine.

Let us approach with faithful hearts sincere
and take the pledges of salvation here.
Christ, who in this life all the saints defends,
gives all believers life that never ends.

He imagined attending Mass in a few days’ time, the nave filled with the scent of fresh loaves brought by the faithful. Perhaps one day he would hear the Sancti Venite chanted, rising beneath the vaulted ceiling, its ancient words mingling with the warm fragrance of bread. A hymn carried across centuries returning to a feast of bread and blessing.

Muratori closed the manuscript gently, almost reverently. “Your journey was long,” he murmured, “but you have found a home.” And as he stepped out into the warm Milan night, he carried with him the quiet, steadfast Latin words of monks long gone, and the promise of Lammas morning, when the great feast of love would be celebrated in the Mass again.

With heav’nly bread he makes the hungry whole,
gives living waters to the thirsting soul.
Lord of the nations, to whom all must bow,
in this great feast of love be with us now.

Neale paused from his reverie, laid down his pen. The past had met with the present, and would be there for the future. His translation was complete. The work was done, and tomorrow it could be sung anew for the great feast day of Lammas.

And in time, when Athelstan Riley (who would later come to Jersey and live at Trinity Manor) sat down to compile the highly influential The English Hymnal in 1906, he specifically selected J.M. Neale’s translation of this very hymn to be included as a standard for churches. It would be set to various tunes, but one of the most popular was the tune Lammas.

Morvah Fair

The poem was written to celebrate Lammas, which used to be celebrated in Morvah at its fair. I wanted to capture a Cornish sense of place - tin mines, moors, and folklore woven together.

Morvah Fair

It is time to ride to Morvah Fair:
Come at Lammas if you dare;
In days of old, the giant came:
Rich tin mines were to blame;
The giant heard of riches there,
And village folk cowed in fear;
Jack the Tinkard came this way
To fight the giant, him to slay;
A hammer striking Giant’s head,
Until the titan fell down dead;
All that’s left is just one bone,
It turned on sunrising to stone;
They say this is the Giant’s grave,
The folk that Jack had come to save;
But walk around the stone today,
Three times, or so the folk do say,
You’ll hear the ghostly giant roar,
Across that bleak and lonely moor;
Now drink to Jack’s health today,
A shilling ale is a small price to pay,
As bards sing of the Tinkard bold,
Of the exploits fabulous and old;
Jack the Giant Killer once lived here,
And took away the people’s fear;
At August harvest, sing and dance,
And Giant’s stone do cast a glance;
The ending of the time of fear,
And rejoicing at the Morvah Fair!

Jersey Illustrated: The First National City Bank comes to Jersey (1969)

The First National City Bank

First National City Bank (now known as Citibank) established a presence in Jersey in 1969, making history as the very first United States bank to open an office on the island. This piece is from the late 1960s. Operating today under its modern name, Citibank N.A. (Jersey Branch), the institution maintains its long-standing presence on the island.

"Jersey Illustrated" talks to G. B. Finneran, Managing Director, First National City Bank (Channel Islands) Limited.

Q. Can you tell us why your Bank came to Jersey?

A. In answering your question, I sup-pose I should point out that our Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of First National City Bank of New York. With assets of f11 thousand million, our parent company operates through branches and affiliates in some 84 countries. In so doing the Bank identified the need to provide additional services for our high net worth clients around the world; and after studying the advantages offered by many of the other low tax area countries, it was decided that Jersey would best suit our requirements.

Q. What are the main advantages offered by Jersey?

A. Foremost, of course, is Jersey's political and economic stability — ad-vantages not found in many of the lower tax areas although their tax structures are often more favourable than here. Tax is not to be dismissed, however, as the absence of Estate and Death duties in Jersey are essential to our holding many of our non-resident accounts. While income tax at 20% and no capital gains tax are important to the resident investor, they are not major considerations in our operation.

In addition to the other factors, Jersey offers communications facilities to the U.K. and Europe which enable us to keep on top of the Sterling and

Eurocurrency markets. Other low tax areas such as Malta, Gibraltar and Bermuda must operate with time lags which mean that they are forced to quote exchange a deposit rates which are a day old. Thus their quotations must allow for time lag and are there-far less competitive. Accordingly many cut out their own local institution and place their money in Jersey.

Q. What proportion of your business is non resident?

A. As I've said, our object in coming to Jersey was not to carve up the same financial pie with the other twenty-five or so financial institutions in the Island. The business we have generated to date is approximately 80% non-Jersey business. And out of that 80%, a significant proportion is foreign currency business. I would estimate that all in all, our Bank here is approximately 60% a foreign currency bank and 40% a Sterling bank.

Q. What about the future of finance in Jersey?

A. I think finance is the growth industry of the Island. If you look at the other industry groupings which exist, farming, tourism and light manufacturing, they are all limited by the physical confines of Jersey. You have an 8 by 5 mile Island whose infra-structure can only support x number of people. If you try to increase industry, agriculture and tourism, you eventually reach a situation of diminishing returns. But in the financial industry the world is your market. You are only really limited by the ability of your accounting machines to put the numbers down on paper as the number of personnel engaged is not directly proportionate to your assets or profits. We are continuously evaluating the business we do to see how we can increase productivity and profitability without increasing demands for additional staff.

Q. Does the United States welcome the prospect of Britain going into Europe?

A. To answer your question I would be expressing a personal judgement since I do not believe the U.S. government has ventured an opinion on the subject. I generally attempt to remain apolitical, particularly as a guest in a particular country. But each country and government has a right and probably duty to act on its economic or any other best interest. Parliament has taken the decision to join .the EEC and I, not that it matters, think it is the right one for the U.K.

Q. If we do not get the terms we want for entry into the Common Market, does this mean that a lot of financial institutions will leave Jersey?

A. This must depend on the legal details which finally emerge. If the high net-worth or wealthy residents decide to leave the Island for fiscal reasons, then I suppose that some of the Institutions, which depend more than we do on this type of business, might have to scale down their operations. But I would not expect any of them to leave altogether.

Q. On a rather different subject, can you tell us something about the present problems of the international monetary system and, in particular, why we do not have fixed exchange rates at this time?

A. To date, the nations of the world have felt fixed exchange rates were needed to have trade go on without the uncertainty as to whether there might be profit or loss at the end of the day for the exporter. With the rates floating as they are now, many traders have been seriously affected. We have seen this in particular in the Japanese shipping industry which has found itself with millions of dollars worth of shipbuilding contracts denominated in U.S. Dollars which, when sold for Yen at completion, will yield fewer Yen and mean a possible loss for the builder.

The reason for the present floating of major currencies is that countries like people have different propensities for producing, spending, saving etc. The simple fact is that the U.S. has been living beyond its means over the last decade and, therefore, the Dollar became overvalued to the other major currencies. At the other end of the spectrum, the Japanese Yen whose value was set shortly after the war has become considerably undervalued. Thus the balance of payments results of the major countries of the world went into disequilibrium and the floating has been designed to permit the currencies to find their natural level.

Warning Signs to Spot in Clergy Leadership

I've been looking at the Torrance Report on Bishop Anne Dyer. There have been several cases of leadership issues within the Church - locally impacting on Jersey, the fallout between Tim Dakin and Bob Key, in which many of the same issues surfaced. Tim Dakin resigned after a breakdown of trust and governance in Winchester Diocese. 

After presenting some key snippets, I outline a list of warning signs.

"At a theological level, I am disappointed by such apparently arbitrary and ‘parochial’ behaviour by a new and inexperienced bishop... "

"There is another aspect to the issue of governance and authority. This is one of strikingly increased centralisation under Bishop Dyer. It is maintained that side by side with this there has been a lack of
the pastoral dimension of episcopal ministry."

"At all meetings (so submissions inform me), the Bishop herself sets the agenda and usually any proposed additional items are rejected or ignored. This also applies at Synod, when no space was allowed for any other business and questions were only permitted if submitted in advance. Such centralisation raises concerns over how it is possible for the Standing Committee to work effectively."

"Behind all of these questions lies what to me is the simple and fundamental issue: Does the Bishop have the personal capacity to bring about healing and reconciliation in the diocese? This is a matter of trust and confidence. "

"I am afraid I do not believe that the Bishop has these capacities. Nor do I believe she any longer enjoys the trust and confidence of a number of the priests in the diocese. Awareness of her history in Durham makes me even less confident of her chance of success. Without colluding in what I much fear is a repetition of the past, I cannot recommend the continuation of a tenure in which I fear that more people will be made to feel diminished and discouraged."

This is a powerful critique, and it highlights several recurring themes that can serve as warning signs when evaluating clergy leadership. Let me distill the main failings and red flags that emerge from the text:

Key Failings Highlighted

• Arbitrary or Parochial Decision-Making
• Decisions appear personal, inconsistent, or narrow in scope rather than grounded in theological or communal discernment.
• Signals immaturity or lack of broader vision.

Excessive Centralisation of Authority

• One person sets agendas, controls discussion, and limits participation.
• Synod and committees become rubber-stamp bodies rather than genuine forums for shared governance.

Weak Pastoral Dimension

 

• Leadership is managerial or authoritarian but lacks empathy, listening, and care for clergy and laity.
• Pastoral absence erodes trust and morale.

Suppression of Dialogue and Transparency

 

• Rejecting additional agenda items, restricting questions, and limiting open debate.
• Creates a culture of fear, silence, and disengagement.

Deficit in Healing and Reconciliation Capacity

 

• Inability to mend divisions or restore confidence.
• A bishop (or any clergy leader) must be a reconciler; failure here undermines the very essence of ministry.

Loss of Trust and Confidence

 
Once clergy and laity no longer believe in the leader’s integrity or competence, authority collapses.

Warning Signs to Spot in Clergy Leadership

• Authoritarian control: Always setting the agenda, rejecting input, limiting questions.
• Isolation from pastoral realities: Focus on governance mechanics but neglect of human care.
• Resistance to accountability: Avoidance of open discussion or scrutiny.
• Repetition of past failures: A track record of unresolved conflict or diminished communities.
• Erosion of trust: Priests and lay leaders openly express lack of confidence.
• Discouragement in the community: People feel diminished, unheard, or disempowered under their leadership.

The failings here are not just about style but about substance of ministry: when authority becomes centralised, pastoral care is side-lined, dialogue is suppressed, and reconciliation is absent, the warning signs are clear. A clergy leader who cannot inspire trust, empower others, or heal divisions risks leaving a legacy of discouragement and fragmentation.

More Short Stories: For Those In Peril on the Sea

A look at the rescue mission of the Carpathia and linked to the "Sailor's Hymn", "Eternal Father, strong to save from the perspective of its Captain.

For Those In Peril on the Sea

Captain Arthur Rostron stood at the forward rail of the RMS Carpathia as the first grey wash of dawn broke over the North Atlantic. The sea was unnervingly still, as though creation itself held its breath. Only the icebergs, silent, jagged and deadly, caught the early light. And among them, scattered like broken prayers, drifted the lifeboats and the dead bodies.

He felt the hymn rise unbidden in his mind, “Eternal Father, strong to save”, the mariner’s song of the sea. He had sung it countless times, but never had its words carried such weight.

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm does bind the restless wave,

It had begun hours earlier, when the wireless operator Harold Cottam hammered on his cabin door, breathless, pale, clutching the message from Titanic like a lifeline. CQD… SOS… struck by iceberg… require immediate assistance. Rostron had read it twice, then once more, as if repetition might soften the horror. It did not. Immediately he ordered the ship turned around, and then he asked Cottam to check once more. In those precious minutes, while Cottam confirmed the desperate situation of the Titanic, the Carpathia was already underway to the rescue.

He had ordered full speed ahead, engines straining, boilers roaring, the ship trembling as though resisting the madness of charging into an ice field at night. He deployed six extra lookouts, bringing the total to seven men simultaneously scanning the dark waters for the glimmer of treacherous icebergs. This dense net of lookouts allowed the Carpathia to safely dodge several massive icebergs in pitch-black darkness while pushing its engines well beyond their normal limits.

And as the Carpathia raced north, he prayed the hymn’s first verse under his breath, asking the Almighty to bind the restless wave and keep the ocean’s appointed limits. Ice loomed in the darkness, monstrous shapes sliding past the bow. More than once he felt the cold finger of fear trace his spine. The bridge crew saw him silently speaking the hymn. But the ship held fast and made it through. And dawn was coming. As the ship approached the coordinates, Rostron ordered the crew to fire flares to encourage survivors.

O Trinity of love and pow'r,
Your children shield in danger's hour;

Now, as the light strengthened, the scale of the tragedy revealed itself. A lifeboat drifted close, its occupants slumped, exhausted. Another held survivors huddled together, faces hollow, eyes wide with the shock of having watched their world vanish beneath the sea. Rostron remembered the moment they first came aboard: shivering women clutching children; men staring blankly into nothing; crewmen from the great liner whispering, “She’s gone… she’s gone…”.

He had spoken gently to each, though his own voice felt foreign. He had listened to accounts of the collision, the rising water, the music playing even as the decks tilted. He had heard of bravery—officers standing firm, husbands stepping back so wives might live, lifeboats lowered into a night filled with screams. And he had heard of the silence that followed.

Later, when all 705 survivors were aboard and the ship turned away from the graveyard of ice, Rostron gathered many in the first class dining saloon, for a memorial and thanksgiving service. Because the Carpathia's dining saloon was originally designed to seat only about 200 people at dinner tables, the crowd had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, filling every square inch of available floor space. 

He asked everyone present to quietly bow their heads, first to give profound thanks for the lives that were saved, and second, to pray for the peace of the 1,500 souls left behind in the Atlantic. He praised the Carpathia's crew and original passengers, thanking them for working through the night to turn the ship into a hospital. And he reflected on how the Carpathia had navigated a field of icebergs at night without crashing. He told those around him, and later wrote in his official reflections: "I can only conclude another hand than mine was on the helm."

The air was thick with grief, yet also with a strange, fragile gratitude. He opened his Bible, though his hands trembled, and read from the Psalms. Then he led them in prayer, mourning the dead, giving thanks for the living, and asking the Holy Spirit to brood over the waters dark and deep, granting peace to those lost souls where wild confusion had reigned in the death throes of the mighty Titanic as it sunk.

And bid their angry tumult cease,
And give for wild confusion peace;

He recalled the faces lifted toward him, some streaked with tears, some blank with shock, some quietly resolute. And he remembered how the final verse of the mariner’s hymn had seemed to rise from every soul present: O Trinity of love and pow’r, Your children shield in danger’s hour… It was not sung aloud, yet he felt it in the room like a tide.

The service ended in complete silence, with many of the survivors weeping quietly before returning to their makeshift quarters.

The sun broke fully over the horizon, casting gold across the waves. The Carpathia steamed onward, carrying the rescued toward safety, carrying the memory of the lost toward eternity.

O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.

Church going

Like many of my poems, I really had no idea where this one was going. The third stanza was actually the first, and then things just changed around, so we start in one place, have a transitional verse, and a final verse in a new home. It was going to be about something else entirely!

Church going

Of lost hope paths, and stranger ways
With a false and softly smiling face
And unseen anger there dismays
And where, O where is grace

Parting is sadness, deeper sorrow
Rejection hid behind the smile
Grace will find a new tomorrow
For the Spirit moves, awhile

Joy is the hymn, the song of love
Found deep in prayer and praise
Come gentle descent of dove
And bread and wine do raise

Church going, but not an ending
But new home of healing, mending