Health care fund a blessing
In 1909 tuberculosis was ubiquitous; it was not uncommon for 
mothers to die in childbirth and appendectomies to be performed on the kitchen table. A young woman saw a need for health care assistance for clergy families in the diocese. Her legacy is the Pickett Scovil Fund that remains a blessing to the diocese, especially retired clergy and clergy widows who are faced with unusual or un-insured medical expenses.
Lucy Vail Pickett, daughter of David Wetmore Pickett, created the fund in honour of her late father and set about raising funds to help address some basic health-care needs.
The David Wetmore Pickett Memorial: A Missionary Nurse fund was born.
Miss Pickett envisioned a trained nurse traveling among clergy families, especially in rural areas, offering in-home nursing care, lessons in home nursing and instruction based on the work of the Anti-Tuberculosis League. Nearly a hundred years later, dental work, hearing aids, medical travel and home care expenses account for 95 per cent of the fund’s assistance grants. The fund’s capital approaches $300,000 and generates interest of around $13,000 each year.
Three diocesan ACW members administer the fund with discretion and compassion. Applications for assistance, accompanied by a brief note and paid receipts for the medical costs claimed, are made to the bishop who passes them on to the ACW committee. Claims are processed quarterly at the end of March, June, September and December. Cheques are usually issued by the middle of the following month. The normal reimbursement rate is between 50 and 70 per cent. The number of applications made and the fund’s available income ultimately govern the rate and amounts. It is an endowment rather than an insurance plan.
This is all a far cry from Miss Pickett’s original vision. She died within a year of establishing the memorial when it held just $170 in contributions.
Elizabeth Robinson Scovil revitalized the fund in 1914 and called for individual donations of $50 to endow a day in the year as a memorial to loved ones. She calculated the principle raised in the early part of the 20th century would provide the salary for a trained nurse for one day a year. In that year the fund provided three grants.
By 1920 the fund stood at $10,000, mostly from memorials to men lost in the First World War. The Women’s Auxiliary (WA, precursor to today’s Anglican Church Women/ACW) assumed responsibility for the fund with Miss Scovil as permanent secretary-treasurer.
WA members donated the offerings of their Life Membership Fund to the Pickett Memorial fund. On the death of Elizabeth Scovil in 1935, the name of the fund was changed to the Pickett Scovil Memorial Fund and its principle stood at more than $25,000. By 1968 it stood at nearly $70,000. Strong ACW support, generous bequests, continued donations and investment growth pushed the fund up to the present balance of nearly $300,000.
Until the advent of Medicare in January of 1971, the fund was used mostly to pay Blue Cross and other medical insurance for active clergy and their families. With Medicare in place, the fund’s board sought legal advice on its original intent and the income was used to provide clergy families with extra hospital expenses, medication, nursing care, dental expenses, hearing aids and other items.
According to Justice Ronald Stevenson, “any matter pertaining to health care should be considered valid reason for application to the fund for assistance, subject to individual need and income available.”
In recent years medical benefit plans for active clergy have all but eliminated their need for the fund and today at least 90 per cent of the grants are to retired clergy and their spouses. In recent years an active clergyman in Fredericton encouraged his colleagues to donate $5 per pay to the fund in order to increase its principle value in anticipation of the coming wave of “boomer” retirements. Their numbers are bound to strain the fund, but very few clergy embraced the idea.
Tension between the needs to be met and the limited income available from the fund have always made its administration a challenge. Some clearly genuine needs, like orthodontics, have never been covered because the potential demand far exceeds the ability of the fund to respond in a meaningful way. New challenges include home care, new and advanced hearing aids, travel for specialized medical care, non-prescription herbal and vitamin-based therapies, and respite for family caregivers. The fund makes every effort to respond positively to these needs and the diocese owes a debt of gratitude to the forward-thinking Miss Lucy Vail Pickett.
