I HAVE cancer of the oesophagus, discovered in January 2009 and have been receiving excellent treatment at the Dorset Cancer Care Clinic in Poole Hospital since then.

I have had chemotherapy and radiotherapy and in the last month a CT scan and a gastroscopy to see where we are at and the answer is that the tumour is still active.

I have seen my oncologist today and she recommends that the next best course to take is to have internal radiotherapy.

To receive this treatment, if they will agree to accept me, I must travel to Exeter where they have the equipment and the staff to operate it.

They have the same equipment in Poole Hospital, purchased at who knows what cost but there is no funding to employ a team to use it.

Thanks to David Cameron’s and Nick Clegg’s austerity measures there is little hope that this will be forthcoming.

We were told that front line services would not be affected by cuts to NHS funding but how much further front line can this life saving equipment be?

Before committing billions of pounds to overseas aid would it not make more sense to look after lives in this country first?

NAME and address supplied