A GRANDMOTHER who feared she would die while she waited for major heart surgery has been told her operation will go ahead in July.

Mary Duxbury's husband Eddie, who has campaigned for her immediate treatment, wept tears of joy when he heard that doctors had decided that her case was urgent.

And he today praised the Lancashire Evening Telegraph for helping convince health chiefs to review her case.

Mary, 62, has already waited more than a year for a triple heart bypass operation at Blackpool Victoria Hospital and had been told that the lengthy waiting lists meant it would be another 18 months.

Her condition has been deteriorating since her problems were first diagnosed in 1996 and she told the Evening Telegraph she believed she would not survive the operation.

Her husband wrote to Health Secretary Frank Dobson urging him to intervene and vowed to sleep outside his door until his wife was treated.

But they have received a letter from the Blackpool NHS Trust saying doctors had moved her onto the urgent waiting list and she would probably undergo surgery in July. Eddie said: "It wasn't until I had read it three times that the full impact hit me.

"That paragraph is worth more to me than all the writing in the world.

"It's really been a battle to persuade somebody in the NHS that my wife's a critical case. I'm a timid, harmless little man but this is something I said I would fight all the way for."

Eddie sent Evening Telegraph articles about the case to Mr Dobson and said he was sure it had made a difference.

"The Evening Telegraph's publicity was not only superb, but we all feel it shook them into this," he added.

But the fight isn't over because Eddie has vowed to raise cash for the Blackpool Victoria Hospital to help them cut waiting lists.

"With the promises this new government has made they shouldn't be so short of money," he said.

"They need extra funds because they can't deal with the number of chronically sick people with heart problems."

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