A RETIRED teacher who spent more than six months in hospital after being struck down by a crippling illness is now forced to wash in a sink.

Winefride Melody, 67, is back home recovering from cerebral vasculitis, which affected her in a similar way to a stroke.

She needs a special chair to help her lift her legs over the bath and support her while she showers, which she says North Yorkshire County Council cannot supply until April.

Until she gets one, she has to wash in a sink, unable to reach her back. She relies on her daughter to wash her hair every few weeks.

After more than six months in York Hospital learning how to walk, eat and wash herself again, she felt she had regained much of her independence by finally being allowed to go home.

But the Selby resident said delays in getting hold of the bath chair were holding back her progress.

"It has been a very hard struggle for me," she said. "I was very independent in hospital and having showers every day. All the nurse had to do was take me there in the shower chair and then they left me to it, I didn't need any other help.

"It feels like I've gone back three months, when the nurses used to wash me and the occupational therapists used to teach me how to wash again.

"I've been told by the occupational therapist that the council does not give a high priority to baths or showers as long as you can wash yourself at a sink. I believe this is a fundamental right which is being denied to me, to be clean.

"I wonder how they would like to be told that they could not have a shower until next April."

Each day, it takes Mrs Melody, who walks with a frame, half-an-hour to wash, as she needs to rest every few minutes.

"I have paid taxes and rates for years and when I need help they cannot give me it, all for the sake of a few hundred pounds," she said.

"When my leg eventually recovers they can have the thing back."

A helpline advisor from The Disabled Living Foundation said there were dozens of devices to help make bathing easier, ranging from under £50 to thousands of pounds.

But she said a bath with attached swivel chair, which would lift up Mrs Melody's legs and swing them into a bath, could cost up to £4,000.

A council spokesman said: "North Yorkshire County Council is committed to providing high-quality community care services to the citizens in the county. We are aware of Mrs Melody's situation. She is currently receiving home care services and we are working with the relevant agencies to try to meet her needs."

Jackie Chapman, York branch secretary of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, said she had never encountered a similar delay to provide "basic living requirements" for the society's members in York and Selby. She said the society regularly gave financial help with providing similar equipment to MS sufferers.

Updated: 09:43 Saturday, February 05, 2005