IT has been an exciting (and tiring) few years for Fairfield Baby Lifeline Society (FBLS).

We usually spend our time fundraising. But the Babies First Campaign has kept us extremely busy during one of the largest consultations to have ever taken place in the health authority.

Meetings, emails, letters, deciphering documents, to name but a few things, have taken up more of our time than we can remember but it is all essential if we are to keep Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU), paediatrics and maternity services at Fairfield Hospital.

Since the campaign was set up in July 2004 we have seen two sets of proposals withdrawn thanks to the hard work of FBLS and public support, without which things could have turned out very differently.

During the first set of proposals, you joined us by attending our first public meeting which saw over 400 people turn out and 5,000 of you marched through the streets of Bury at our first protest march making local history as the largest public demonstration ever seen in Bury. This alone showed the depth of feeling about the possible closures.

The last set of proposals, issued at the beginning of 2006, saw that Fairfield Hospital (yet again) and now also Rochdale Infirmary were earmarked for closure.

This was a massive blow for us. However, due to a 2,000 strong protest march, a public meeting attended by 300 people, a petition signed by over 38,000 people and more than 25,000 responses to the Making It Better document, the revised proposals now state that keeping SCBU, paediatrics and maternity servies at Fairfield is the preferred option.

You showed that the public can make a difference. The fight isn't over yet but, with your continued support, we are confident that we can keep our essential services LOCAL.

If services were taken away from Fairfield there would be approximately 12 miles between Bury and Manchester, with no hospital in between.

However, Manchester would still have three maternity and paediatric hospitals within five miles of each other.

Do our babies and children not matter? A woman who has gone into labour at 29 weeks would be at risk of losing her and her baby's life if she had to get through rush hour traffic to Manchester.

A member of the Children's and Young People's Network called that unfortunate' in 2004.

Very sick and premature babies are in hospital for months. When your baby is lying in an incubator fighting for their life all you can offer them as their mother is your time, to sit and bond and deliver essential breast milk.

How many times a day would you feasibly be able to travel this distance after an emergency caesarean if your partner was working and you had other children, possibly at school or nursery?

Removing local services would, in effect, deny many women the ability and their natural right to be a mum at this crucial time.

We would all be lying if we said there weren't emotional ties to Fairfield, as we have all had our own experiences there, mostly life-changing.

We need and want our hospital local, as everyone else does.

However, we have come up with solid arguments to keep these services at Fairfield and these should be listened to.

If they are not, then a mockery would be made of the whole consultation process.

We would like to thank you all for your help and support, however great or small, and promise you that we will keep fighting for Fairfield Hospital and for the safe delivery and care of our precious babies and children.

Fairfield Baby Lifeline Society / Babies First Campaign