[Margaret Pilkington]

I don't think your stance makes you heartless Sue. I also give to four charities on a regular basis.
And I think that modern life has made us very very cynical and suspicious.
During my career I met men of all ages(that sounds really bad doesn't it?) who slept rough...had nowhere.
This young man looked like them

He was was lying there at 9.30 in the morning...he didn't look as though he had been anywhere else during that day....his quilt was thin and wet from the floor of the underpass, and the damp from the tiled walls.
I took him on face value....and thought about how I would feel if it were me.(or someone I cared about)
I know I cannot help every beggar(and by the way - he wasn't begging...he was asking for nothing) but if I can offer some kindness/help(however fleeting) to just one person I meet, for no other reason than the fact that I can do it...and it takes nothing at all from me that I need.
Your question about helping every beggar makes me think of the man walking along the beach where hundreds of star fish had been washed ashore - likely to die.
He was picking them up and putting them back in the sea.
Someone said to him 'you can't help them all' just as he was putting one back...he said 'No, but I helped that one'...it is the same principle.

Who knows if at some point in the future I am in need of help and support of some description, and it is offered to me....Karma! What goes around comes around.

Different strokes for different folks.
And now I have drifted even further from the debate on doctors.
Compassion isn't religious, it is just wanting to make a difference to the life of another human being by offering a kindness(in whatever form is necessary).