Over the weekend, a friend and I visited a sick old woman at Karen Grech Hospital. We were appalled to see stuck to the ward’s main door a paper-patterned black skull, beaconing the coming of Halloween.

Further down the ward, there were all sorts of scary decorations... life-size witches, big black spiders, grinning cartoon pumpkins and so on.

In a place like this, where patients could possibly be clinging to dear life, we found these Halloween arrangements to be in very bad taste.

Moreover, many of us supposed believers are ignorant of the fact that these celebrations go against our religious beliefs; they portray the culture of death, while our God is the Lord of life. (Maybe the priest on the round could draw the attention of whoever is responsible.)

So, it only stands to reason that advertising death in a place like a hospital, where many could be taking their last breath, is not uplifting at all to the patients or their visitors.