In light of the poor woman who had to travel to Manchester from Sussex to have her premature baby, I have to tell you the following.

My daughter was about ten weeks pregnant and rang me one evening to say she had been bleeding all day and was steadily getting worse.

As the Royal Sussex County Hospital is a five-minute walk from where she lives in Brighton, I told her to ring the hospital and ask for maternity, which she did. The maternity ward transferred her to accident and emergency, which in turn gave her the NHS Helpline number, which she rang.

They said someone would call her back. Half an hour later she rang again. Within ten minutes of the second call, a nurse called her back and told her to ring her doctor, which she did. The female doctor covering for her doctor told her that bleeding in pregnancy was normal in some cases and could go on for a few weeks and not to worry but, if it got worse, to call her again.

The bleeding did get worse and my daughter decided to go to the hospital as she was very worried. She went to the A&E department and rang me to tell me she was there. I work for the police and my shift did not finish until later but I promised I would get to her as soon as I could. When I arrived she still had not been seen.

We were told there were two or three patients before her but she kept on being put back and in the end the nursing staff asked the obstetrics and gynaecology senior house officer (SHO) to come down from the labour ward to see her as the A&E doctors were too busy. By this time she was feeling some pain and I asked the staff to hurry up.

When he eventually came, he was extremely nice. He examined her and felt that things were intact.

He tried to give her a scan but she did not have enough fluid and the scan was blurred. He said she would have to come for another scan the next morning and if she had not heard by 9.30am, to ring them.

Needless to say, she had not heard from them so rang the number the SHO had given her. They were very curt and told her they would phone her back, which they did.

My daughter went for the scan, which sadly showed she had lost her baby and arrangements were made for her to come in on the following morning to have whatever was left removed.

Of course, she had to ring to check if there was availability.

There was and in she went. She was told they were expecting her to go to theatre.

I rang every hour to check if she had gone into theatre only to be told she had not. I spoke with my daughter who was distressed and hungry as she had not eaten in preparation for her operation.

Then she was told if she had not gone to theatre by that evening, the operation would be cancelled. Well, the time came and went and no one wanted to tell her so they just left her there. My daughter asked what was going on. She was crying and very upset and staff had to tell her she would not be going to theatre.

This total disregard for a young girl's emotional state of mind is unforgivable. By this time I was going frantic with worry.

I was working again and felt totally useless, unable to be with my daughter or

make arrangements for anyone else to see her, although my partner was ready to pick her up at any time.

As if this was not bad enough, because of the delay my daughter started haemorrhaging and was given painkillers. This is totally unacceptable, despicable and disgusting.

Eventually the SHO who had first seen her took her down to theatre the next day and performed surgery himself.

I rang every hour to see if she was all right, only to be told she had been taken down to theatre when I had already been told it had been cancelled. No one rang me to tell me the situation had changed.

On collecting my daughter the next morning, I was told that the delay was because of more urgent cases and that there was only one anaesthetist on duty. How irresponsible and dreadful is that for a hospital of that size?

Not everybody has the financial resources to pay for private health care. That should not mean they are treated so appallingly.

-Name and address supplied