Scarborough woman 'wouldn't be here today' if it wasn't for the NHS
This week sees the NHS mark its 75th anniversary
A Scarborough woman says she would not be here today if it was not for the doctors and nurses at the town's hospital 13 years ago.
This week sees the NHS mark its 75th anniversary and we are hearing stories of the ways people have benefitted from the health service in that time.
69 year-old Denise Earnshaw, from Scarborough, came back from holiday in 2010 and she said: "I went out one day. I was fine in the morning, met with a friend, and then I started getting these stomach pains. My husband had met me and my daughter-in-law and I couldn't really get back to the car very well. We got home and I thought 'oh it's just irritable bowel disease' but it got worse and worse."
Denise has been speaking to Greatest Hits Radio's Karen Liu:
She went for a check up at the doctors and then went to Scarborough Hospital.
She added: "My husband in his wisdom told them he thought I was constipated and so for the next 24 hours, they were treating me as having constipation and didn't really do a lot. Anyway, the next day I started vomiting this horrible dark liquid and the consultant was called in and said 'right, you need to go to theatre.'
"I then found out I had been given a colostomy, my bowel had ruptured and I had peritonitis, septicemia and my lung had partially collapsed. I'm not sure, but I've been told that I may have stopped breathing for some time."
She says she would give them a big thank you if she were to stand in front of the staff who treated her at Scarborough Hospital.
She said: "They encouraged me to do things. It was very hard at first because I could only walk a few steps, I just had no energy, not even to open a card, my husband used to have to read cards out to me. But eventually over three weeks, I got to walk to the end of the corridor and then they made me walk up the stairs before I could come home."