A WORCESTERSHIRE woman who faced weeks of worry after a life-changing operation to remove a brain tumour was cancelled three times is recovering in hospital after finally having the procedure.

Emily Bennett of Fernhill Heath was due to have the procedure to remove a growth on the right hand side of her brain, which was causing her to have seizures and suffer memory loss, at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Tuesday, December 2 last year, but the appointment was cancelled as surgeons were dealing with more urgent cases.

The operation was rescheduled for Monday, December 8 but again cancelled and re-booked due to a lack of beds. Although it was rescheduled for Monday, January 12, this was also cancelled for the same reason.

But on Tuesday, January 26 the 24-year-old finally had the operation and is now recovering in hospital.

Speaking yesterday afternoon her mother Maxine Renton said her daughter has been in surgery for about three hours and was recovering in the hospital’s intensive care department.

“She’s feeling good,” she said. “She’s awake and she had some breakfast.

“She’s in intensive care because there are no beds anywhere else.

“But I’d rather have her there anyway.

Ms Renton said surgeons believed they had removed the entire tumour but her daughter was due to have an MRI scan today (Thursday) to see if they had been successful.

“We’re really pleased,” she said.

“It’s too early to know if the operation worked though.

“She does have another growth at the front of her brain but it’s not doing any harm so they’re just going to monitor it.”

Miss Bennett had an operation to remove a malignant tumour when she was eight, but two years ago doctors found she had developed two more. An annual MRI scan in October last year showed they had grown and the decision was made to operate.

Earlier this month Ms Renton told your Worcester News the stress of the cancellations was taking a serious toll on her daughter’s health and that she did not believe doctors should have to spend time finding beds when they could be treating patients.

A spokesman from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, which runs the QE, said the organisation had recently come under significant pressure, with an eight per cent increase in the amount of patients visiting A&E over the past 12 months.

“We regret that any operation has to be cancelled and acknowledge the distress this can cause to both patients and their relatives,” she said.

Overall 90,000 more patients were admitted to the hospital between April 2013 and March 2014 and, in an effort to deal with the increase in demand, the trust stopped accepting referrals for elective procedures from outside Birmingham last year.