Last year, proposals came out to say that Fairfield Hospital would lose its highly experienced Special Care Baby Unit, current maternity services and children's overnight services.

Our group, Fairfield Baby Lifeline Society, formed the Babies First Campaign Group and, together with a truly dedicated team of volunteer campaigners, challenged these proposals and succeeded in having the proposals withdrawn when health bosses admitted that more work needed to be done.

However, documents have now been issued saying virtually the same thing but are not saying which site will be affected! Quite a clever ploy don't you think?

They have asked the public to complete the questionnaire in the centre of the Making it Better document and will assess the replies, together with collating information from various public meetings and workshops, before making a decision on the site (I assume) and will then issue formal Consultation Papers in December.

How on earth did they expect people to answer questions about local services when they did not say which site would be affected?

I spent approximately two hours reading the document and then writing my answers on the questionnaire. A lot of the people affected by these proposals will have children who are continuously ill and in hospital or have had full-term or premature babies with disabilities and do not have the time to do this as any spare time they get is precious.

Why has such a difficult document been drawn up? Is it to put off a lot of people so that they can say that they did ask for public opinion and no-one replied? In any event, many of the public might think 'why spend the time doing this when we might not be affected?'.

I only hope that when making the decision on which sites will lose services that they look at ALL the evidence and statistics not just for Bury, but for the surrounding areas that also use Fairfield Hospital, and don't choose to make a detrimental decision that could end up in the death of a baby or mother.

MRS SHARRON ENTWISTLE

Trustee - Fairfield Baby

Lifeline Society / Babies

First Campaign