Please sign petition to help save heart unit

I KNOW that many people in the Hinckley area are heavily involved in the campaign to save Hinckley Hospital, and I signed their petition myself on Sunday at Shackerstone.

However, we are also trying to make people outside of Leicester more aware of the huge fight we have on our hands trying to keep children’s heart surgery in the East Midlands.

Most people will realise what an important service this is but a huge percentage of them do not realise it is seriously at risk and once it is gone it is gone.

This is something that will impact on the entire country as children will have to travel hundreds of miles for life saving surgery.

It is a very sad thing to say that most of those who signed our petition at Shackertone on Sunday were not from the local area.

Many were from areas which have already seen essential medical services cut and do not want to see any more children put at risk.

It was very difficult getting local people to sign on Sunday as most wouldn’t even listen to what we had to say, and just walked away.

I assume they thought we were trying to sell them something or were asking for donations, which was obviously not the case.

Would it be possible for your paper to do a piece about the petition encouraging people to sign?

The online petition address is petition. parliament.uk/petitions/160455

There is also a paper version and if anyone wants copies of blank petition sheets I would be happy to get them out to them.

We really need to promote this in your area as many, many children will be affected by this decision if we allow this unit to close through public apathy.

Shirley Barnes Save the Glenfield Children’s Heart

Unit Campaign