Letter: Patients have nothing but praise for unit, so why is it being moved?
The Mayoress and I visited the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to help promote one of the many Macmillan coffee mornings, which will be taking place in Shrewsbury on the September 27.
On arriving at the hospital, we were taken to the maternity ward and met a very ill little 18-month-old boy, who was having chemotherapy treatment for his cancer.
His mother and father, who live in Telford, wanted to help the Macmillan coffee morning campaign and allowed us to take photos of them and their son to help raise awareness for the campaign.
We then left the maternity ward and started to walk toward the new Lingden Davies Ward, which treats 450 outpatients a week.
These people all have cancer, but with the medical staff's help can lead almost normal lives.
As we were on our way to this ward a man came up to me and said: "We have just lost our baby, but I wanted to stop you and say what wonderful staff the maternity unit has. They have been so supportive."
After apologising for his loss, I carried on towards the ward when I was stopped by another man who told me that his baby had just been saved after he stopped breathing for six minutes. He then went on to say again how brilliant the nurses are that work in the hospital.
I could not believe that within less than 200 yards, two different people who I had never met had been coming up to me and telling me how good the staff are and how wonderful the work they are doing is.
What I don't understand is why, if the maternity ward and the staff are so good, is the service being moved away from Shrewsbury to Telford?
Jon Tandy, Shrewsbury
