Mother 'let down' as operations cancelled
Sitting waiting in a hospital gown ready to go under the surgeon's knife, Sandra Ward was understandably nervous.
But the operation she was so nervously waiting for, the surgery that would tell her if she was suffering from cancer, was not to go ahead that day.
In fact she would be called back to hospital two more times, only to be told on both occasions that her operation had been cancelled.
Mrs Ward, from Bridgnorth, was due to have surgery to remove a cervical growth in January this year, but said she was left feeling 'humiliated and let down' after her surgery was repeatedly cancelled.
It meant she was left with an anxious 13-week wait to find out if she had cancer, after being told of the growth in November last year.
Mrs Ward, a teacher at Castlefields Primary School in Bridgnorth, was due to have an operation to remove it on January 20.
The first operation was cancelled after a five-hour wait, while the second was cancelled due to a chemical spillage.
She said: "The first time I went in I had to sit in the hospital for five hours waiting.
"It's a terrible feeling having to sit and wait. The person next to me then went down into theatre so I had to put a gown on, which isn't nice either – having to sit there pretty much naked. "It's humiliating.
"Then at around 4.30pm I overheard a telephone conversation saying it was going to have to be cancelled.
"I was told face-to-face about half an hour later that it was cancelled."
The mother-of-three, aged 49, said that she went back two days later but this time was told there was a chemical spillage so the operation was cancelled again.
She added: "It caused a lot of stress for me. I am a teacher so I had organised to have a supply teacher, and then had to go back and say we don't need the supply teacher now.
"It's quite embarrassing and was very stressful."
Mrs Ward was left to wait until February 3 for her next operation. Having been told to attend Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for the first two, this time she was due to go under the knife at Princess Royal Hospital, in Telford.
This operation was cancelled due to faulty equipment, and she eventually had the operation done privately.
She said: "A lot of people said it would be third time lucky, but that wasn't the case.
"The feeling of having to wait to go down into theatre and find out if I had cancer or not is horrible and I had waited for 12 hours in total.
"I threw myself into my work to take my mind off it, but I had to consider how to tell my children that their mother might have had cancer as well as their father."
Her husband, Mark, who is 53, was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma two years ago.
"It has a knock on effect on everyone. It wasn't good for the kids at school because they need a routine. My daughter, Katie, goes to university in Sheffield, and she got the train home three times to come and look after me."
Thankfully, the growth was not malignant and Mrs Ward is now recovering at home, but she said her experience has affected her emotionally as well as physically.
"I have to be careful because I work with four and five-year-olds and spend a lot of my day picking them up or crawling around on the floor," she said.
"But this has made me quite emotional about it as well. It is very stressful and I find it hard to talk about it now without becoming tearful."
Mrs Ward said the problem of cancelled operations is a national one, and has called for the subject to be debated in the House of Parliament.
She has now started up a petition and is encouraging anyone who has had operations cancelled to get in touch with their MP. She said: "If people up and down the country have had this happen to them, I am urging them to contact their MP. This is something that needs to be discussed in Parliament." Andy Rogers, spokesman for The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust said: "While we are unable to discuss this case in any detail, we would like to apologise to Mrs Ward and can confirm that we are looking into the matters she has raised."
Mrs Ward claimed that hospital theatres may be being overbooked, which is why operations are being cancelled. But the Trust insists this is not the case, saying: "We can confirm that it is categorically not the case that theatres are overbooked to meet waiting times.
"We regret that at times planned theatre lists can be affected by a number of issues – for example, previous operations can take longer than planned."
To sign the petition, visit this link.