Anguish of lad, 12, as spine op cancelled twice

THE NHS winter crisis is causing anguish for those patients who have had their operations cancelled.

Keilan Bennett, 12, had waited 39 weeks for surgery to straighten his curved spine by inserting rods when his op at Queen’s Medical Centre was cancelled twice in December. It went ahead last month but his scoliosis had worsened, squashing his lung and making breathing difficult.

Keilan’s dad Lee, of Leicester, said of the cancellations: “You are living in no man’s land. You don’t know what you are doing. Keilan didn’t deal with that very well. He was so worried he wasn’t sleeping.”

Surgeon Mike Grevitt warned there may be “only a handful of beds” in the country on winter days for critical child cases.