SINCE we launched our Save our Cancer Surgery campaign last month, we have been inundated with letters of support.

Hundreds of you have written to our newsdesk to share your stories and views on the potential closure.

We will present all of the letters along with our petition to NHS bosses at the end of our campaign.

Here are just a few of your views and stories.

Click HERE to learn more about our campaign and HERE to sign our petition.

Brian Llewelly, of Woodland Way in Wivenhoe, writes:

I find the suggestion to close the cancer urology surgery department incredulous.

I write as an experienced cost accountant, management consultant and patient.

The statistics have been well rehearsed and speak for themselves.

The cost benefits are completely hidden from me unless the past and presnet investments in people and plant are wirtten off as worthless. The organisational benefits also escape me.

But I write mainly as a patient having had my bladder removed to cure me of cancer.

Mr Corr and Mr Casey and their medical teams, together with the nursing staff on Mersea ward and all the support staff are outstanding.

Their success rates speak for themselves. the stoma nurses are amongst the best in the country; very professional and caring, always ready to listen and help.

Gazette:

Should the facility be moved to Southend the effect on patients will be beyond costing with increased stress and worry.

I have tried to calculate the cost if I had been served by Southend rather than Colchester:

  • The train journey would have been about two hours each way and the cost about £20 by train entailing two or three changes. Taxis all the way would be out of the question financially. Is it intended to provide a costly ambulance service?
  • The number of visits for scans, consultation, pre-med and admission number, in my case, more than six.
  • On admission I had to be at the hospital for 7am so a neighbour kindly chauffeured me before going to his work. If it had been at Southend I would have needed to go the night before. That would be one day longer in a ward with its related cost.
  • My recovery was surprisingly rapid. Clearly praise must go to the team but my recovery was aided by frequent visits from family, friends and Christian ministers. These visits would have been nigh impossible or rare if I had been at Southend. From my observations of patients without visitors, I believe my hospital stay would have been a minimum of two days longer without the cheerful stimulation and support I received. Yet more cost of hospital beds and medical attention.

Most urology patients are in the higher age bracket and living on pensions and could not afford all the extra costs invilved in the suggested scheme.

My understanding is that NHS services should be patient lead.

The present crazy suggestions are far from patient lead; in fact, it appears no consideration has been given to patients at all.

I suggest to save money the people who have come up with this crazy suggestion should be replaced by people who can exercise simple logic and arithmetic.

R Brandford, who lives in Vine Road in Tipree, said:

I HAD surgery for bladder cancer in October 2012 followed by BCG maintenance and now monitoring.

I have received treatment second to none from all members of staff in the urology unit.

I hope common sense prevails and Colchester General is allowed to continue with urology surgery in the future.

Donald Procter, of Oakwood Avenue in West Mersea, said:

I would most certainly oppose any closure.

I was given a biopsy in December 2008 and was confirmed as having prostate cancer and have been having treatment ever since.

I would point out most of today's pensioners are pensioners.

I am personally just short of 89 years old and know of several my age and would find it extremely difficult to travel long distances. Furthermore it would appear diagnosis of protate cancer is on the increase. It would be a retrograde step.

J Spurgeon, who lives in Friday Wood Green in Colchester, wrote: 

I FULLY support your bid to save urology surgery in Colchester.

Twenty five years ago I was treated for bladder cancer and thanks to the treatment I received I was cured.

I have now been diagnosed with prostate cancer with a low PSA so I am on active surveillance.

If in the future I need treatment, having to go to another hospital would be very traumatic.

The cancer surgery unit at Colchester and the dedicaste team of consultants and nurses do a fantastic job. We must keep this unit in Colchester.