AN AMBULANCE is leaving the streets of West Yorkshire for Romania.

It is going to Transylvania, where it will be used to transfer patients to and from the general hospital in the central city of Sighisoara.

It replaces the city's only ambulance, which is ready for the scrapyard after 16 years.

A Leeds-based charity, The White Rose Initiative, is behind the campaign and will be driving the P-registered vehicle it is buying from the West Yorkshire Ambulance Service the 2,600 miles to Romania.

Trustee Caroline Barrow said: "We've been helping the people of Romania for 13 years.

" I visited the area just after the revolution in 1990 and was shocked by the poverty and chronic shortness of health care.

"I came back to Leeds and with my husband, Chris, and some like- minded people we started the initiative.

"We've now got 150 members."

Every year, 10 members visit Sighisoara, to provide practical help.

Their work has included building a playroom for the hospital and re-wiring the maternity wing.

The ambulance service's fleet care director, Derek Smith, heard about the charity's bid to replace the broken-down Romanian ambulance and offered to help.

He said: "The engine had blown up on the old vehicle and to repair it would have cost almost as much as getting a replacement ambulance.

"The group had already raised some £3,000 towards the cost and it can pay the remainder - £2,500 - as the money comes in."