A CHRISTCHURCH family has thrown its weight behind a campaign to save Southampton’s heart surgery unit.

Tamara Armstrong and her husband Ian are urging others support the fight to save the high-quality unit after their son Eden was treated there as a baby for a serious heart condition nearly five years ago.

A four-month consultation is currently under way over plans to cut the hospitals offering children’s heart surgery from 11 to six or seven. Only one of the four options would keep Southampton as a surgical centre – even though it has been rated as the second highest-performing children’s heart surgery unit in the country.

If it closed, local families would have to travel to London or Bristol.

Eden, who is now four-and-a-half, was born six weeks early after Tamara’s midwife noticed an erratic heartbeat during a routine scan, 33 weeks into her pregnancy.

The mum-to-be was transferred to Bournemouth Hospital’s maternity unit and then sent to Poole Hospital where she underwent more scans and tests.

“It was very frightening. I was told at least twice that my baby might die by doctors that day”, Tamara said.

The next day she was transferred to Southampton maternity unit but in spite of various treatments, little Eden was born four days later by Caesarean section. After five days in a neo-natal ward he was transferred to the specialist paediatric heart unit for treatment for SVT – supraventricular tachycardia.

“Staying in hospital with a sick child is traumatic enough,” Tamara said. “ I cannot imagine how low I would have felt if I had been stuck in London where I know people would not have been able to visit, especially my daughter who was five at the time and my mum.”

She added: “I feel very strongly about this issue as the hospital saved my son's life.

“I would love everyone to get behind this campaign and understand that someday they may be grateful for the wonderful work that Southampton's heart unit does and the support that they provide to families all over the south region.”

Eden, who will be starting school in September, still attends the hospital for visits twice a year.