Auxiliary but that appears to be what is happening.

It would be almost impossible to find anyone in Bermuda with anything bad to say about the Hospitals Auxiliary. The Pink Ladies, and nowadays their male members, have given Bermuda and its hospitals selfless service almost beyond belief. Over the years it has become difficult to think of the hospitals without the Pink Ladies.

But volunteers need some appreciation and some respect and they do not seem to be getting that right now from the Hospitals Board. Yet the Hospitals Board must know as well as we do that without the volunteers hospital services and facilities would decrease and costs would increase.

Bermuda is an island of volunteers. Every charity organisation learns their value and tries as best it can to keep them happy and keep them working. Many of them are women and these days most women work which seems to be cutting down on the time they can devote to the charity of their choice. As charities have grown and new charities have developed, there has been a need for more and more volunteers and it is no longer as easy as it once was to find them.

There seems to be a dispute between the Auxiliary and the Hospitals Board over space for the Auxiliary's services at the King Edward. We would have thought that while construction was taking place at the hospital the Hospitals Board and its architects would have included the Auxiliary in the planning talks. If they did not do that, they underestimated the importance of the Auxiliary to Bermuda's hospitals.

Traditionally, aside from its services, the Auxiliary has given large sums of money to buy equipment for the hospitals. It is now concerned about its own costs of renovating and decorating its King Edward coffee shop and gift shop and has decided to withhold donations until it can meet its own costs. Surely all of that could have been a part of the "package'' of renovating the hospital. The Auxiliary seems to be waiting for information from the Hospitals Board about those costs.

The President of the Hospitals Auxiliary has said, "Our decision is based upon our need to plan financially for the future renovations of the space.'' We can only urge that the situation be sorted out as quickly and as amicably as possible. It would be a sorry day if anything led to a long-term dispute between the Hospitals Board and the Hospitals Auxiliary.