CAMPAIGNERS have, quite rightly, fought to keep the specialist children’s heart unit in West Yorkshire.

They have lobbied the politicians and have, astonishingly, collected more than 200,000 signatures on petitions.

Now the consultants have warned that if the specialist unit is shut down at Leeds General Infirmary, other services are also likely to go.

They point out that the specialists who carry out lifesaving surgery on children, many of them from Huddersfield, also have adults as patients. They will have to follow the work.

It is an extra reason for even more people to back the fight.

Just look at families like the Sutcliffes, of Linthwaite.Young George Sutcliffe, now 12, has already survived three serious heart operations at the unit and is due to undergo a fourth any day now.

Imagine the traumas he, his family and friends are already going through and then add the extra problems that a move to a hospital in the north-east or the Midlands would bring. For his sake, and the sake of many other families, the unit must stay here in Yorkshire.