Teacher’s cancer op was axed despite RCN pledge to protect ’emergency’ treatment 

The husband of a retired teacher fears she may pay with her life after her cancer operation was cancelled due to the nurses’ strike.

Heather Smith, 75, was due to have a tumour removed from her left breast last Thursday, the day members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) took to the picket lines.

She was called by the hospital the day before to be told the surgery had been postponed, and has yet to be given a new date for when it will go ahead.

The cancellation comes despite the RCN’s pledge that ‘emergency’ cancer treatment would not be affected by the strike.

Mrs Smith and her retired accountant husband Nick, 73, will spend Christmas at home in Sutton Coldfield fearing the cancer will spread. She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I’m so anxious.’

Yesterday, the RCN’s general secretary Pat Cullen said: ‘I do have to say sorry to any patient that had their treatment cancelled.’

But Mrs Smith’s appalled husband dismissed the union leader’s apology as ‘rubbish’. He said: ‘My wife is distraught. It’s probable she won’t be operated on for at least six weeks, while the cancer is spreading.

‘Does this delay mean she’ll lose her breast – or if it’s spread, her life?’

Mother-of-four Mrs Smith, who has six grandchildren, has ‘no idea’ when the operation at Good Hope Hospital in Solihull will now take place. It is now four months since she went to her GP after finding the lump.

Mother-of-four Mrs Smith, who has six grandchildren, has ‘no idea’ when the operation at Good Hope Hospital in Solihull (pictured) will now take place. It is now four months since she went to her GP after finding the lump

After successive delays she had a biopsy on November 9 and was told the lump was cancerous on November 25.

She said: ‘It’s very worrying – especially as I can feel the lump now. It’s painful sometimes.

‘I’m still waiting for a new operation date. I’ve heard nothing from the hospital. Nothing. And it’s going to ruin my Christmas.’

Under an agreement struck between the nurses’ union and Government officials, nurses engaged in ‘emergency’ cancer treatment should continue to work on strike days.

But the RCN said no national definition of what emergency cancer treatment includes has been agreed, adding: ‘We’ve been clear that emergency and clinically urgent [cancer treatment] should continue.’

The RCN said no national definition of what emergency cancer treatment includes has been agreed, adding: ‘We’ve been clear that emergency and clinically urgent [cancer treatment] should continue’ 

The RCN said it was up to Mrs Smith’s hospital to explain how her operation has been classed, in terms of urgency.

Mrs Smith said: ‘It might not be urgent to them, but it’s urgent to me.

‘I can imagine it inside me – growing, getting bigger.’

A spokesman for University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘We sincerely regret that, as a result of the industrial action, we have had to reschedule some procedures in the interests of patient safety.

‘We are very sorry if this heightens any anxiety or worry, however, we will reschedule these for the next earliest opportunity.’