A DESPAIRING family are worried their seriously ill mother may die due to delays to emergency surgery.

Barrie Fitzsimmons said his 54-year-old wife Marie requires an operation to repair a tear in her heart that led to internal bleeding.

She is being cared for at Royal Bolton Hospital and the family were told she needed to be transferred to Manchester Royal Infirmary in South Manchester for specialist heart surgery.

But after a week waiting for a transfer, the family has now been told the surgery can be done in Bolton.

Mr Fitzsimmons, 62, of Embla Walk, Great Lever, said: “It has become critical because she collapsed and they sent her for a scan and found she had a growth on her liver that could be cancer and she has a tear in her heart.

“I do not know why nothing is being done. I want her home and safe and it is taking longer and longer.

“We found out yesterday the tear in her aorta is at the back and so does not come under heart surgery and the repair operation can be done at Bolton after all. So why was it not done a week ago?”

Mrs Fitzsimmons had a quadruple heart bypass three-and-a-half years ago at MRI.

Since then she has experienced sporadic chest pain attributed to angina and mild heart attacks and was therefore put on the list for a routine operation to examine and resolve the issue.

Mr Fitzsimmons said: “She should have had it more than 12 months ago. Over the space of 12 months they have cancelled the operation five times.

“We do not know how long she has had the tear for.

“If she had had the operation when it was originally scheduled in July 2014 it could have been fixed months ago.”

His wife was due to be admitted on October 25 so she could have the long-awaited surgery the following day.

But before she got to hospital her chest pain worsened. She collapsed and was taken to Royal Bolton Hospital’s A&E department.

She was admitted as an inpatient to that hospital’s coronary-care unit but then suffered a second collapse midweek.

Mr Fitzsimmons said: “She is conscious but she is hooked up to all kinds of machines at the Royal Bolton and she has a line into her heart to replace the blood that she is losing.

“My wife cannot work, physically. I am her carer.

“She has fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, which are all bone-wasting conditions.

“My wife cannot be left alone in case she has an angina or heart attack. I have to take her shopping with me.”

The couple’s three children who lived with them — Gavin, 25, Laurelle, 21, and Kennedy, 13— are all as concerned as their father for the state of their mother’s health.

Mr Fitzsimmons, who drummed with bands in clubs around Bolton for almost 40 years, said: “We are all worried about her and a lot of her friends are worried about her, as are other family living in Bolton.

“I cannot understand why they are delaying. I do not want to lose my wife.”

Heather Edwards, head of communications at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We appreciate that Mrs Fitzsimmons’ family is concerned for her. However, she has not been awaiting an emergency bed at Manchester Royal Infirmary for her current problem.

“She had, though, been waiting for a bed at Manchester Royal Infirmary for a non-urgent operation for something else.”

A spokesman for Manchester Royal Infirmary said: “Mrs Fitzsimmons is due to have a routine procedure at Manchester Royal Infirmary which regrettably has had to be cancelled twice in October due to emergency pressures.

“We are making every effort to ensure that this is rescheduled as soon as possible.”