Claire Evans, of Paulls Close, Martock, Somerset, daughter of Sally Hurrell, writes:

I am writing to you in response to David and Sue Halpin’s letter in the MDA on Friday regarding my mother’s cancelled operation – Questions about beds must be answered.

Myself and my family would like to thank Mr and Mrs Halpin for their words of support. In our opinion Torbay Hospital let my mother down in the worst possible way and I have little doubt that Torbay Hospital would prefer it if we, as a family, would simply go away, but despite how painful this is for us all this is not going to happen.

At the time of writing we still have not received evidence that there was not a bed available within the Critical Care Unit for my mother, or Mr Pullan’s report. I have written to the chief executive at Torbay Hospital on a number of occasions but have yet to receive a reply from her as our correspondence is passed on to the complaints coordinator – given the seriousness of our complaint I find this simply appalling.

Knowing that my mother’s death was 100 per cent preventable has made the pain and trauma my family have endured over the last six months intolerable to cope with.

I would like to emphasise to your readers that the reason behind our complaint is absolutely nothing to do with money. I have been asked on a number of occasions how much will you get? I loathe the compensation culture that has become so popular within today’s society; it is not until you are in a situation where you would sell everything you own in order to save a loved one that you realise just how worthless money is.

All we wish is for no other family to experience the same pain as us – it is too late for my mother but if we could achieve that it would go some way to ease our pain.

I am sure that Torbay Hospital would prefer it if myself and my family were to ‘simply go away’; the complaint process has been extremely painful but we will never give up until we receive the truth and get some justice for my mother.

I can recall an occasion when my mother said to me: ‘I do not intend to give up or go away, Claire’ (she was referring to a situation we were going through at the time), Mum, I echo those words: I never intend to give up or go away either.