Dad blasts suits for shiftingson-saving surgery south

Lewis Bronze (right) with father, Neil (left) and family friend (Derek Leonard) with lots of sports and showbiz memorabilia auctioned in aid of a kids' heart care charity a few years ago.

The Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) said on Thursday (April 25) that paediatric surgery should be carried out in Dublin.

Lincoln Courts dad, Neil Bronze, reacted angrily to the announcement. His son Lewis was born in 2004 with a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) and during his first three months he was kept alive at Altnagelvin before undergoing emergency heart surgery in the Royal.

Last October Mr Bronze said the potential closure of the Clark Clinic in the Royal was an awful prospect.

Now he says: “Utter devastation is an understatement regarding the closure. With Lewis due more surgery in the near future our minds are already on the stresses and strains of not only watching our son go through more life threatening but saving surgery, but to have to go to what is essentially a foreign country although a close neighbour, is somewhat distressing.”

“It is just one big smack round the face. We are full-time hard working tax paying parents of a son with congenital heart disease. To have these services taken away from us by the overpaid shirt and tie brigade is a bitter pill to swallow,” he blasted.