THE battle by frontline medical and nursing staff to provide adequate services for patients at Withybush Hospital has been further highlighted.

Less than a day after 23 hospital consultants went public in the Western Telegraph over their concern at bed cutbacks, a private letter signed by junior doctors and nursing staff was handed to Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust chief executive Frank O'Sullivan.

The letter focused on the daily struggle - since the closure of the gynaecology ward - to find enough beds on the women's ward for women miscarrying, having terminations, post natal bleeding, emergency conditions, routine or urgent surgery.

Some patients were left in the accident and emergency department or admitted to wards where nurses were not aware of the correct gynaecology procedures.

Other patients had to sit in a chair or in another part of the hospital, sometimes for hours, in distress, waiting for hospital beds. Others had to remain at home.

The letter said that on the new women's ward there were so few side rooms, patients with sensitive problems had to be nursed on the main ward with little privacy.

There were no private rooms for counselling, breaking bad news to patients with cancer, or discussing confidential issues.

Operations were cancelled at the last moment due to lack of beds and patients had no way of planning for their home care or those of children or dependents.

To save the use of beds, patients having major surgery were sent home, at the request of a manager, to return in the morning shortly before their operation. This increased risk of mistakes in clerking, routine checks and general anaesthesia.

The staff say patients with cancer-related problems had admissions delayed or cancelled and people with complications following operations were unable to go to the ward because of lack of beds.

Outpatient services were also suffering, with inadequate facilities, space and privacy.

Hospital management seems to have been sleep-walking into this crisis, claimed Preseli Pembrokeshire prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate Stephen Crabb, after a meeting with the chief executive: "For weeks the Trust management has been saying 'crisis, what crisis?' and have shown a serious complacency about the strength of feeling among staff and the wider community about what is happening at the hospital."