The charity which supports the specialist children’s heart surgery unit at Leeds General Infirmary is urging people from Bradford to back a new campaign to keep it open.

Public meetings, street protests, petitions and an online campaign will form part of the SOS: Save Our Surgery campaign, started and co-ordinated by the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.

The campaign officially got under way today as the Department of Health began a four month consultation process on plans to cut the number of children’s heart surgery centres in England.

Of the four options being considered, only one will see the surgery in Leeds survive.

The CHSF has said it hopes “parent power” will force the Government into a re-think. It aims to organise public meetings across the region and hopes to attract more than 100,000 signatures to a petition to be delivered to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

CHSF director Sharon Cheng said: “If this unit closes, families will be forced to take their children hundreds of miles for surgery, and in emergency situations that is bound to put lives at risk. We want every parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle to make their feelings known.

“If enough people start shouting, the Government will have to listen.”

Parents in Bradford have been quick to voice their concerns.

Shelly Turpin, 41, of Clayton, the mother of nine-year-old Joshua, who underwent corrective heart surgery at the unit in 2009, said without the centre her son would not be alive.

Meanwhile, Joanne Britton, of Idle, said she had signed every petition she could find and had joined a Facebook campaign in a bid to keep the surgery at the purpose-built unit after surgeons saved the life of her 13-year-old son Ethan, who was born with a serious heart condition.

And Naomi and Shaun Wilkinson, of East Parade, Ilkley, said they were “devastated” at news of the possible closure. Surgeons in Leeds helped save their daughter Olivia’s life and have cared for her since her birth in 2008.

  • Read the full story in Monday's T&A