Has anyone noticed the proliferation of advertising for the big hospital lotteries? Day after day there are full-page and half-page newspaper advertisements, sometimes both, urging us in huge letters to get our tickets as there are five, four, three days left – and this is the final weekend.
How much does this advertising cost? What about the brochures and billboards, the pamphlets and mail-outs, the Internet messages – not to mention the office overheads and the salaries for the staff?
Would any of the proceeds of these lotteries – if indeed there is a reasonable sum left after all expenses are taken into account – be needed, if our government kept our hospitals up-to-date, fully equipped and well-staffed? I think not.
Sheila Gair