EXTRA heart operations are to be carried out in the North-East after Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced he was injecting more cash into the region's hospitals.
Cardio-thoracic units in Middlesbrough and Newcastle will share in an immediate £435,000 additional allocation from the Department of Health. This is in addition to the tens of millions being invested to increase capacity at both centres over the next few years.
The money will enable teams of surgeons at South Cleveland Hospital on Teesside and the Freeman Hospital on Tyneside to carry out an extra 57 heart bypass operations between them, plus hundreds of other heart operations.
Announcing the £7.7m top-up for heart units across the UK, Mr Milburn told delegates at Labour's Spring Conference in Glasgow: "This is good news for the North. We need to make sure we do as many heart operations as we can and save as many lives as we can."
Last year the Darlington MP announced a national plan to overhaul and transform the treatment of heart patients in Britain, inspired by The Northern Echo's A Chance To Live campaign.
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