HEART specialists at Ipswich Hospital today launched an amnesty for vital equipment which has been borrowed and not returned by patients.

HEART specialists at Ipswich Hospital today launched an amnesty for vital equipment which has been borrowed and not returned by patients.

Mobile heart monitoring units are given to patients to take away to measure their hearts - but they are not always returned.

The units cost between £600 and £1,500 each so people's forgetfulness is proving costly for the Heath Road hospital.

Evening Star readers are currently raising money for new units through the Star's Lifesaver appeal.

The community has raised £22,000 for a cardiac ultrasound machine for the accident and emergency department but as donations have continued to flood in, we now aim to buy six or more of the £1,500 mobile units.

But the hospital is also desperate to see the old ones returned.

Cliff Woollard, cardiac physiologist at the hospital, said: “There are machines which people have for around two weeks and others which they have for 24 hours.

“Both tend to go missing, but more so the two-week ones.

“They are used by patients to take recordings of any heart palpitations or flutterings, and then they can play the recording down the phone to us and we can tell if their symptoms are related to heart problems.

“When people forget to bring them back it's usually because they've put them in a draw and forgotten about them, or mislaid them while moving house or something like that.”

In March, the Star featured the story of East Berholt's Ben Dunne, a sporty teenager recovering from a potentially fatal heart condition

The youngster's story touched staff and visitors at the Royal Oak pub in the village and fundraising raised enough cash for one of the much-needed 24-hour monitors.

N Has the cardiology department at Ipswich Hospital helped you? Tell us your story. Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk