HUSBAND and wife Roal and Carmel Martin will soon be walking the wards at the Royal Bolton Hospital, alongside 12 other Filipino nurses.

The Filipino couple, who have also worked in Saudi Arabia, are part of a group of nurses from the Philippines who will be working at the town's crisis-hit hospital in two weeks time.

Roel, aged 32, will work in orthopaedics and Carmel, aged 28, in the intensive care unit.

It is the first time that the Royal Bolton Hospital has employed international nurses and is part of a major recruitment drive to fill 126 nursing vacancies at the hospital.

The move is expected to boost morale and ease the workload for nurses on the Bolton wards.

Full report on Page 6 Picture by Marc Berry