A TODDLER is facing a lifetime of deafness after health bosses told her there was not enough money for a vital operation.

Now Ellie McAnish is involved in a race against time to secure the funding for the surgery before it is too late. And family and friends have launched a £30,000 fund-raising campaign to pay for private medical bills if NHS officials can't find the cash.

Ellie will be two on October 10 and has been deaf from birth. If she doesn't get a cochlear implant before she is four-years-old she will be deaf for the rest of her life.

Her parents Sara, 37, and Billy, 43, of Belthorn Road, Belthorn, were hoping she would have the operation in July.

But they were devastated when Primary Care Trust bosses told them they only had enough cash for five operations in the current financial year -- and she was sixth on the list.

A special panel is now trying to find the extra cash. If they fail, Ellie's family hope she will have the operation next year -- but any delays will leave them perilously close to the four-year deadline.

Sara, 37, said: "It is heartbreaking to find out your little girl is deaf but when we heard about the operation we were given hope.

"The problem is that she needs the operation sooner rather than later because the longer she cannot hear the less chance she has of learning to talk, leading a normal life and going to a normal school.

"More importantly, if the operation is not done before she is four it will not work and she will be deaf for the rest of her life."

Surgery must be carried out before the age of four because a brain which has never registered any sounds for so long will then shut down all pathways to the ears.

Angela King, senior audiology specialist for the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, said: "For a child that is born deaf the first four years of life are critical in being able to hear people speaking around them so they can acquire spoken language.

"If the PCT doesn't provide the funding for this operation they are condemning Ellie to a life of deafness and even if the PCT approves funding for 2005 they have reduced her chances of learning to speak and communicate verbally."

Sara added: "What really upsets me is that there is a limit on how many children they treat when it is so crucial to get it done as early as possible.

"We had been told she would get the operation this year and now just feel let down and misled.

"I have been told that a panel with representatives from all three PCTs will meet at the end of December to see if they have any left over money to pay for the operation."

Billy is a builder but cannot work at the moment. He had three fingers sewn back on after an accident.

Florence Hughes, 52, the treasurer for Belthorn Village Committee, is masterminding the fund-raising campaign. She said: "I only heard about their funding problem through a friend of Billy's and was asked not to say anything.

"But we couldn't just sit there and do nothing when time is so against them."

Janet Ledward, a spokesman for the East Lancashire's three PCTs, said: "The PCTs fund a quota of cochlear implant operations each year based on estimated local need.

"However, when there is a need for additional operations during the year, funding is considered by a meeting of a specialist East Lancashire wide-panel at which Blackburn with Darwen PCT is represented. Blackburn wiith Darwen is the PCT that Ellie comes under."