OLD people in East Lancashire who need a wheelchair are having to nine months for one.

That's like a prison sentence - being confined to a chair and dependent on others for all that time.

But why should anyone, young or old, be condemned to such a fate?

It is the old NHS story - rising demand and not enough resources.

Now, health chiefs in East Lancashire are aiming to bring the wheelchair waiting list down to two weeks by the year 2000.

At this rate, many old folk in the last years of their lives are as likely to see a wheelchair as they are this magic millennium.

Don't they and the quality of their lives deserve a higher priority?

It is not as if wheelchairs are hi-tech, high-cost medical equipment. But they are vital.

In this year's Budget, the government ballyhooed extra billions for the NHS.

So why don't health chiefs direct some of these extra resources to cutting the wheelchair queue forthwith?

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