HAZEL Bale has just set out on the long and painful road toward a knee replacement operation - but she fears she will be dead long before her turn comes around.

The 70-year-old, from Rogerstone, has been told she can expect to wait FOUR years just to see a consultant.

And with the NHS in Gwent struggling to contain orthopaedic treatment waiting-lists beyond the outpatient stage, her total wait could be much longer than that.

"I might be dead a long, long time before they get around to me," said Mrs Bale, a former banqueting manager at a hotel.

"I feel angry about this. I've always paid my national insurance and tax, always been in work, and worked on beyond retirement age," she said.

"Now I'm beginning to feel that I've been put on the scrapheap. I could be 77 or 78 before I get an operation, and I could be dead by then."

Mrs Bale had her left knee replaced two years ago as an emergency case, but a letter from Gwent Healthcare Trust about an appointment for her right knee states that she should expect to wait 208 weeks.

"I don't know why they put it in weeks. They should come straight out and say four years," said Mrs Bale.

"I've always been healthy, but this problem has stopped me in my tracks. I was booked to go on a day-trip last week, but I couldn't go because I was in too much pain.

"My husband has had to do some work on the steps to the front door to make it easier for me, and I cannot walk far and without a stick. I'm also on painkillers. I can only go a couple of hundred yards without having to rest.

"We have a touring caravan but I cannot get up and down the steps. We can only go abroad on the bus now. We wanted to do Route 66 in the United States, but I've no earthly chance."

Gwent Healthcare Trust has 600 people who have waited more than three years for a first orthopaedic outpatient appointment, and that number is set to double by the end of next March.

But Mrs Bale's anger over waiting-times is directed at the National Assembly for Wales.

"I realise there are people worse off than me, but four years? That's disgusting," she said.

"They are going to pay £50 million for a new Assembly debating chamber, but they could spend that (on the NHS) by 2005 and there would be no waiting-lists."