Troubled child heart surgery unit reopens: But families reveal worrying new evidence of safety concerns Local MPs criticised 'hasty' decision to close the unit Child heart surgery is to be resumed at Leeds General Infirmary amid claims of a "shambles" over the decision to suspend operations on safety grounds. Parents, MPs and campaigners have demanded to know how the troubled unit came to be closed over safety concerns - only to re-open within a week. Some claimed the decision had been "reckless" - while the NHS and trust bosses maintained they were forced to act after seeing data that suggested death rates were double the national average. But last night worrying new evidence emerged of the problems at the unit. A couple claimed doctors at the unit wrongly told them they should abort their baby because it would be too sick to survive - only for them to discover the problem could be treated elsewhere, A mother told how her daughter's life was saved by heart surgery - after doctors at Leeds had claimed "nothing could be done" for her, A mother whose seven-year-old daughter died at the unit died last year demanded a fresh investigation into her case. All child operations at the Leeds unit were halted on Maundy Thursday following the release of NHS figures suggesting its death rate was double that of other centres, and a "constellation" of issues. But a decision was reached at a summit between Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, NHS England and other organisations on Thursday to aim to re-open the unit early next week. Some parents of children treated at the unit, as well as MPs and campaigners, have welcomed the news. But others said questions still needed to be answered about the problems at the unit. Emma Ethelstone, 28, and John Sauve, 37, say they were left "devastated" by the way they were treated at Leeds. The couple were told by doctors at the unit that their longed-for baby daughter had such severe congenital heart disease that they had no choice but to abort her. Miss Ethelstone - who was 26 weeks pregnant - was told "not to Google" her baby's condition as it wouldn't be helpful. When the couple ignored this advice and looked up the condition on the internet, they were shocked to discover that there was in fact an operation that could help. Miss Ethelstone then emailed every hospital in England specialising in complex heart conditions - and the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle said they could offer the surgery. Their baby daughter Imogen-Rose was born there on March 5 and given open heart surgery four days later. She will need further operations but she is now a healthy one-month-old. Miss Ethelstone said: "We felt like a piece of meat on a conveyer belt. It didn't seem like they were talking about my little girl - they kept calling her the foetus. But when they went to Newcastle, medics had a totally different attitude, she said. They gave us hope. I just want to advise other expectant mothers to always seek a 2nd 3rd 4th opinion. Helen Burton, 39, is among those calling for a full investigation into deaths at the hospital. She lost her only child, seven-year-old Eve, last March after an operation at Leeds to rectify a congenital heart defect. After Eve's death, Miss Burton complained to the hospital about her daughter's care, including why the operation was delayed until Eve was seven, when the average age for such a procedure is apparently four. She also says she was not fully briefed on either the risks involved, or exactly what went wrong during the surgery. Responding to the news that the unit is to resume operations she said: "It seems back-to-front to me to announce it will re-open before they have had assurances that the unit is safe. This is too important to be rushed. Greg Mulholland, Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, who has campaigned to keep the unit after its closure was recommended in a nationwide review, called on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to launch an investigation into how the hospital's closure had been handled. He said: "I'm afraid the communication from NHS England has been woeful and the handling has been deeply questionable, and indeed the motivation behind the decision in the first place is something that I think people want to get to the bottom of." Parents had criticised the timing of the unit's suspension, which came just 24 hours after a High Court judge ruled that a decision-making process to close it as part of an England-wide reorganisation of services was "legally flawed." Sharon Cheng, of the Save Our Surgery group, which ran the campaign to save children's heart surgery at Leeds, said: "Many children are reliant on the Leeds unit for urgent or on-going treatment, so the sooner normal service can be resumed, the better." But Anne Keatley-Clarke, chief executive of the Children's Heart Federation, said families needed full disclosure on the investigations that had taken place because they were still "very worried" about their children and frightened about raising concerns. She said parents who had raised concerns in public had been subject to harassment and bullying. Ian Dalton, deputy chief executive and chief operating officer of NHS England, said: "The risk summit concluded that surgery could restart at the beginning of next week, subject to independent validation of the clinical data and an external review of clinical governance processes. We expect this work to be completed over the next few days and a conclusion reached early next week. A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals said: "We cannot comment on individual cases but we would be very happy to talk to families if they would like to contact the hospital to discuss any concerns."