Cancelled op angers woman

A ROYTON mother who had an operation cancelled just hours before she was due to undergo surgery at the Royal Oldham Hospital has hit out at the system which leaves little room to deal with emergencies.

The woman, who does not want to be named, is one of seven people who had their operations cancelled at short notice last week.

The last-minute cancellation threw her arrangements — including booking two weeks off work so she could recover at home — into disarray.

She now faces having to rearrange them for another date — despite hospital staff saying they can’t guarantee her operation won’t be cancelled at the last minute again.

She was told by staff they had no alternative but to cancel her routine procedure because beds were needed for emergency patients.

She said: “It’s so frustrating and annoying to make all the arrangements and psyche yourself up, only to be let down at the last minute.

“The hospital must know it is busy at this time of year with illnesses and accidents caused by the bad weather, so why bother booking non-urgent operations in January if there is every chance you end up disappointing people?

“They don’t seem to care about patients being inconvenienced.”

A spokesman for the Royal Oldham Hospital said it was under pressure because of a rise in emergencies, and despite staff working extremely hard, they had been forced to cancel some non-urgent operations.

He said: “We are very sorry for the inconvenience the cancellations caused our patients, and we hope they understand this decision was not taken lightly.

“Our medical team has been in touch with all the patients affected by the cancellations to apologise,” he said.