Published: Thursday, 24th September, 2009 10:00am

Letter: Don't take heart patients away from first class staff

by Correspondent

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FURTHER to the article in the September 17 edition of The Chronicle, I would just like to put my feelings forward. The idea of ferrying heart patients 42 miles to Southampton is absolutely ludicrous to say the least.

Last year I began suffering angina pains, which worsened into chronic unstable angina, which basically meant I didn't dare go anywhere without my GTN spray.

I had three emergency ambulance admissions to the Royal Berks cardiac unit, one of which saved me by only a matter of minutes. Eventually I was "grounded" in hospital until a bed was available in The Heart Hospital in London. They took an emergency ambulance and crew out of service to transport me to London, which despite their best efforts was a very uncomfortable and worrying journey that I could well have done without. I then had a triple heart by-pass operation.

The people contemplating transporting heart patients in agony and anxiety 42 miles to anywhere other than the Royal Berks Hospital obviously have not had personal experience of this horrible condition.

The last thing anyone suffering this wants to do is move any more than they have to.

The RBH team, from consultants right down to ward nurses and other staff, are first class and give their all to help you back to some form of normality.

Nothing can help one's recovery more than familiar surroundings and family and friends visiting regularly. They too would have to travel 42 miles - not very convenient. The RBH Cardiac Unit's only failing is that it doesn't have the final facility of being able to carry out major surgery. Surely there must be a local multi-millionaire who would love to fund such a project and have it named after him?

Let common sense prevail and let us concentrate on our own local facilities and build on them.

CLIFF FOX

The Drive, Earley