A HOUSEBOUND pensioner is having to pay £4 in taxi fares every time she goes to see her GP round the corner because of a two-year wait for a wheelchair.

Winnie Preston, 75, of Ennerdale Avenue, Shadsworth, Blackburn, read the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's expose of wheelchair waiting lists and rang us to say she was being "driven to tears" by the delay.

The problem was highlighted by East Lancashire nursing home staff whose patients are waiting up to nine months for wheelchairs.

And Community Health Council staff and district councillors have joined this newspaper in condemning the delays as "disgraceful."

Winnie said: "I was told in May after a two-year wait that the wheelchair would be ready in a week. I rang again after reading your story and was told that I would have to wait yet another two to three weeks. I was so distressed that my nurse had to take the phone off me, she said." Winnie has been wheelchair-bound since suffering a stroke 12 years ago. She is also diabetic and recently underwent a hip replacement.

Her wheelchair is so decrepit that she has been advised not to go out in it at all and husband Bill, who has undergone a double heart by-pass, has been told not to even attempt to push her.

She said: "It is very hilly where we live and I have to get a taxi around the corner to the doctor's. I am so upset about all this that I have shed more than a few tears recently."

Nigel Robinson, chief officer of the Community Health Council, said he was "appalled" by Winnie's story.

"We have been pursuing this situation for some time and are totally dissatisfied. A new contract between the health authority and the wheelchair service will hopefully put the service back on a even keel, but we are not going to let go of this until it is sorted out."

"The Community Health Council would like to hear from people with stories like Winnie's because the more we know about the situation the better."

Maurice Rand, rehabilitation engineering services manager for the Preston-based Disablement Services Centre, said: "We have only had contact with the patient since March 1996.

"We are making some modifications to her 'attendant-controlled' powered wheelchair and she should have it within a month.

"The waiting list for powered chairs is about nine months which is the same as manual chairs."

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