Ex-nurse's £500,000 bequest for hospice

Published on Thursday 3 September 2009 22:03

A RETIRED nurse has left more than £500,000 in her will to support the creation of the first hospice in the Scottish Borders.

Margaret Kerr, 83, from West Linton, Peeblesshire, died in March. The bulk of her estate is to pass to a charitable trust for the benefit of the hospice movement in Scotland.

She stipulated that any project for terminally ill patients benefiting from her bequest must have the support of the medical and nursing community in the Borders.

Palliative care in the region is currently provided at Borders General Hospital near Melrose. However, NHS Borders has not indicated whether it would support any move.

Ms Kerr's lawyer, Douglas Connell, said: "She was particularly keen to see some form of hospice development in the Scottish Borders and hoped the availability of a significant sum might act as a catalyst for its creation.

"A sum in excess of 500,000 could be made available if a suitable project was to emerge."

The daughter of a Church of Scotland minister, Ms Kerr volunteered as a Royal Navy nurse and became a ward sister in Edinburgh, eventually receiving an MBE for her work.

One palliative care trust in the Borders has welcomed the bequest and said it was willing to work with the health authority in helping to deliver a hospice.

Audrey Finney, whose husband Callum, 33, died at their home in Galashiels after a long battle with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, formed Callum's Trust to ease the end-of-life experiences of terminally ill patients.

She said: "We believe there is a great need for a hospice or palliative care facility and this bequest is a huge opportunity to move forward and start this much-needed development."