NKF short of money?? You must be kidding....

The headlines in one of ST's reports screams "NKF short of money and nurses".

Really? I am not disputing the nursing shortage....this is probably something being experienced in every sector of health care. But short of money??

The report is very similar to the one floated in Nov 2009.

While I am not criticizing NKF for doing great work with kidney disease, I have 2 questions:

a] What is wrong in occasionally, or even habitually dipping into the reserves? Especially if the reserves are in access of S$250,000,000.00?

b] Why is it perceived that somehow renal patients are more deserving of charitable support than patients with other chronic or catastrophic diseases....? That NKF should sit on such great wealth while other charities are languishing?

NKF to dip into reserves

I wasn't quite sure what to make about the recent report about how the NKF suffered "one of its worst financial results in years". It ran into a deficit of some $900,000 and had to dip into its reserves.

I was tempted to feel sorry for it until I was reminded of the whopping size of its reserves. $270 million!!! This pretty much the same as when it ran into the TT Durai scandal in 2005. I couldn't help thinking that even if the charity couldn't ever do better than this recession year, and had to dip into into its reserves to the same degree for the next 100 years, there would still be a sizeable pile of cash in the bank.

By comparison, the Community Chest in 2007/8 raised $52 million and disbursed $49 million.
Annual Report 2007/2008