SIR: I know how Mrs Mary Ellen McGovern felt about her ordeal at the Royal Bolton Hospital where she was left waiting 10 hours for a hospital bed, and then was sent home alone just an hour after she had been found one.

I was front page news on April 3 (John, 11, is left out in the cold) when it was reported that I was left sitting in the cold while waiting for an ambulance to tke me home from hospital.

It has also happened to many people who did not reach the front page of the BEN.

If the NHS was a private business it would have been bankrupt long ago.

So come on fellow citizens. Do something before it happens to you.

J Small

Wardle Street, The Haulgh, Bolton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.