Heart-breaking blow for Samantha Smith as hospital cancels lifesaving operation just hours before surgery

Samantha Smith’s imminent ‘lifetime fix’ operation in America has been cancelled by the hospital just hours before her surgery was due to take place.

The brave mum of two from Smithybridge flew out to the United States of America on 17 January ahead of her provisional surgery on Friday (25 January), which would fuse her spine from the base of her skull through to her mid-back.

However, whilst preparing for the 5am operation (Arizona time), Sam received the devastating news that the hospital in Arizona had cancelled her surgery, the date for which had initially been secured in November 2018.

The devasting blow came just hours after psychotherapist Samantha and her family were told the surgery was to be more aggressive than previously planned and would include stabilisation in the front and back of her neck.

The reason for cancellation, she said, was due to the bank flagging the transaction to pay for costs as fraudulent activity – despite her pre-warning Barclays that this was going to happen.

She said: “The Barclaycard was flagged up by the fraud team as large spending abroad even though we’d pre-warned the bank that this would be happening. This means the hospital have cancelled my surgery as I couldn’t give them the funds within the time limit they gave me.

“They’ve lifted the hold on the account but it’s too late; the hospital has cancelled. To have it taken away over money, money that we’ve got… We’ve lost the surgical date.

“There’s been a complaint escalated with Barclays but that can take up to eight weeks for that to be sorted. I was on the phone to them for hours crying that I’d lost the date that it took months to get.”

Sam confirmed she would go to the hospital and speak with the surgeons to try and secure another date as soon as possible.

Beginning to cry, she added: “I’ll go to the hospital to try and reschedule the surgery and just hope it’s in the time frame we’re here so I don’t have to pay for all the pre-surgical tests again.”

A Barclays spokesperson said: “We take our responsibility to safe guard all our customers’ money and information extremely seriously. 

“We have a duty of care that transactions of an unusual nature are authenticated with the customer.

“We have now established contact with the customer and are helping to resolve the matter so the payment can be processed as swiftly as possible.”

The hospital could not be reached for comment.

How you can help Save Samantha

Donations can be made via:

Just Giving: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/save-samantha-smith

PayPal: www.paypal.me/savesamanthapurchase

Bank Transfer: 

Name: Save Samantha 
Account no: 90266248
Sort code: 20-45-45

Read more about Samantha's brave journey:

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/news-archives?type=News&Criteria=Samantha+Smith