A FORMER councillor is outraged at plans to close the Special Care Baby Unit at Fairfield Hospital and turn the maternity wards into a day-care centre.

Mrs Pam Walker, of Nuttall Avenue, Whitefield, has spent thousands of pounds from the cash legacy left by her late father, Mr Harry Green, to buy new equipment for the hospital.

Back in April, the ex-Pilkington Park ward councillor bought 10 monitors worth £6,500, and recently purchased a scanner for the unit.

The scanner arrived at the hospital on Monday (July 12), the same day the shock announcement was made by health chiefs.

Under the controversial plans, the maternity unit which was fficially opened on April 2, 2001, by the Prime Minister's wife Cherie Blair would become a day-care facility.

It would mean mums being sent home within hours of giving birth, with no overnight stays.

Fairfield Hospital would introduce a midwifery-led day service where mums would go home soon after giving birth, with community-based healthcare professionals giving support.

Those who developed last-minute complications would be transferred to other hospitals such as Rochdale Infirmary and North Manchester General.

Mrs Walker said: "I am absolutely gutted. It is a wonderful place and I cannot praise the special care baby unit and all the staff enough. I am so upset about it."

Mr Green, who lived in Bolton Road, Bury, died four years ago and left a sum of money to be donated to various good causes.

Fairfield Hospital was specifically chosen after Mrs Walker's nine-month-old grandson, Leon, was treated in the baby unit when he was born three weeks premature.

"Before Leon was born, I did not really know what happens in a baby care unit. Unless you've been involved in something with your own children or grandchildren, you cannot truly understand what it is like. People just do not realise what a job the staff do there."

"All my daughter had to do was walk down a flight of stairs and she was in the unit with Leon. How are people expected to travel to Rochdale or North Manchester, especially if they don't have their own transport?"

The scanner will officially be presented to the hospital next Wednesday (July 21) by Mrs

Walker and her husband, Colin.

Mrs Walker said: "Leon is a smashing baby. He is nine months old now and really lively. Both my grandchildren were born at Fairfield, although only Leon needed special care, and I want the equipment to stay local where it can help other babies in Bury."

Guide News Editor Steve Orrell, who held a fund-raising event in February for his 40th birthday to raise more than £1,000 for the special care baby unit, said: "I'm sure anyone who has visited the unit and had a child cared for there, can't believe it is going to shut. I find it astounding.

"You just wonder what the hell is going on in the ivory towers of the health service when they can tinker with such a vital lifesaving service that so many families have been indebted to.

"Just over three years ago, Cherie Blair came to open the new maternity unit at Fairfield, trumpeting how services were being improved. It was reassuring for people to know there were such good facilities for the care of children on our doorstep. How can they now say things are going to be better by taking key services miles further away?"

A meeting was being held last night (Thurs July 15) by the trustees of Fairfield Baby Lifeline Society to start a campaign to save the unit. It plans to organise a public meeting in September.

Prestwich Lib eral Democrat Councillor Vic D'Albert said: "This announcement has the potential to endanger people's health, well-being and lives. We're opposed to it and will fight it all the way."

The recommendations have been put forward by the Children and Young People's Network for Greater Manchester, made up of parents, paediatricians, nurses, managers and other healthcare staff, in a review of "out-of-date" children's services.

The proposals will be discussed by the Strategic Health Authority on July 22 and, if approved, will go out to public consultation in the autumn for a period of three months, after which a final decision would be made.