Heart of the matter

HEART disease is a massive problem in East Lancashire because of dangerous lifestyle habits such as smoking and unhealthy diets.

Staff at the new hospital said its new facilities would play a role in combating these problems and to save and improve people's lives.

Key to this is the cardiac catheterisation laboratory, the first in East Lancashire.

Bosses have recruited a new consultant, Dr Mohsen Gaballa, to run the new facility.

At the moment people have to visit units in Blackpool and Manchester where waiting lists run as high as six months, Dr Gaballa said.

The new facility which opens next month will slash this to two or three weeks, he said.

And while staff will only be able to examine the heart at this stage, by the end of next year life-saving operations will be carried out, he added.

Dr Gaballa said: "Right now, East Lancashire is the worst in the whole of England for mortality from heart disease.

"Within a year or so it will change we will be in the middle or the beginning of that list.

"If a person feels well the maximum waiting list for our service will be one month while urgent patients will be seen in two to three days."

The cardiac catheterisation procedure, which begins next month, involves pumping a liquid into the body via the wrist or groin that shows up on an X-ray machine.

As blood does not show up on X-rays this will allow Dr Gaballa to see how well the heart is pumping blood.

Within 16 months the service will be able to widen blocked veins using a balloon, allowing a tube called a stent to be inserted to keep it open, he said.

Dr Gaballa said about a third of patients suffer from heart disease because of hereditary factors while others suffer through a lifetime of smoking and poor diet.

He said: "There is a lack of physical activity. You have remote control to put on your TV now rather than walking a few steps.

"We have cellphones so we don't have to walk to a telephone box. Even in hospitals we all now use computers so we don't have to walk anywhere. Technology has made us comfortable."

The £720,000 suite has been paid for with lottery cash. A nearby angiography heart scanner is also new.

Superintendent radiographer Patsy Fenton said: "The technology we were using at the infirmary was 20 years old. We were having difficulty getting parts for it, it was becoming obsolete."

The opening of the hospital meant the end of overnight urology services at Burnley General as the new development brings the speciality onto one site.

This has caused controversy at Burnley in the light of moves by bosses to also have all serious emergency patients travel to Royal Blackburn Hospital by 2009.

Urology is the study of the urinary tract and the reproductive system of males and one of its main tasks is the treatment of incontinence.

Michael Seaward, 63, of Ringstone Crescent, Nelson, was transferred from Burnley General on Monday to a four-bed ward overlooking the nearby reservoir.

He said: "I can't complain about the treatment at all, it is bob on. I couldn't be in a better place. I would have paid £100 a night to stay in a hotel and I wouldn't have got the food brought to my bed!"

But he said: "From a personal point of view I would have rather been at Burnley. The wife doesn't drive so it is very inconvenient being here. It is a long way from Nelson. When you hear these figures about how long it should take to get here they should try it themselves. It is not further than you think but it is longer than you think."

He said it was clear, however, that more specialists doctors were on hand, which bosses said was a key reason for the move.

Day patients will still be seen at Burnley which doctors say is the majority of people seen by the department.

Clinical lead for the department, Dr Andy Jones, said: "Without the new development, this service would have been transferred to Preston and patients requiring major surgery would have had to travel outside of East Lancashire for treatment."

Ward manager Angela Oakland said; "Waiting lists will not go up. It is a very efficient and flows very well.

"In design terms the new hospital is a massive change in the working environment. It is much nicer, we are making the best use of the resources we have got."

The department contains 11 single rooms with the remaining 19 beds mostly falling into four bed bays.

She said the department was able to cope despite the loss of nine beds which is part of a bed cut drive to save £11.6 million for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages hospitals in the area.