AN 84-year-old woman is urging patients not to fear having an epidural at Basingstoke hospital.

Franziska Porter has spoken out after The Gazette revealed how two patients were paralysed after having epidurals.

Mrs Porter was due to have an operation on her back last Friday when she read about Isabel Brewer who has been left paralysed from the waist down.

The pensioner said that in 1985 she had to be resuscitated during an operation on her neck, and that doctors told her it was to do with the epidural she had received. But this did not deter her from having an epidural this time around.

Mrs Porter told The Gazette: "I was all ready to go last Friday when my husband picked up the paper and read the story. He said: 'I don't want you to read this'. But I did read it and I said I was still going to go. I couldn't go on with the pain I was in.

"My daughter also asked me what I was going to do. I had made my mind up. The doctor had told me what was going to happen.

"So I had it done and now I can stand up straight again, which I couldn't do before. There have been no after-effects."

Mrs Porter, who has been married 62 years, added: "I used to have to more or less crawl out of bed. It was so painful and I could only do housework after taking painkillers.

"But this operation has made such a difference and I would do it again. Of course I would. I would urge other people not to be afraid. The surgical profession are peforming miracles every day."