DISABLED Irene Harris today hit out at "disgraceful" hospital treatment when surgery was cancelled as she lay on the operating table.

Widow Mrs Harris, 67, of Coburg Road, Dorchester claims surgeons stopped an operation on her knee at the Dorset County Hospital moments before it was about to begin.

The aborted procedure came as the wheelchair bound pensioner was due to go under the knife for surgery to her knee.

Former cleaner Mrs Harris, who was married to the late Bertram, said: "The ambulance was an hour and a quarter late picking me up from my house.

"They got me to the hospital and to my bed before preparing me for surgery.

"They took my pulse and blood pressure, asked questions and even drew an arrow on my leg where the surgery was to take place.

"We got to the operating theatre and they gave me an anaesthetic injection to put me out, but then said they weren't going to do it."

Mrs Harris, whose husband used to work as a gardener for Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, waited three months for the surgery.

She was booked in after suffering an infection and complications with her right leg after a knee replacement in March 2001.

Mrs Harris said she felt drowsy after being given the anaesthetic before her latest operation on October 15 but didn't completely pass out and was wheeled out of the operating theatre. She added: "They just said I wasn't well enough.

"The staff were very nice but I think that it's disgusting that I got as far as the actual operating table before the operation was cancelled. "I had got myself ready for it all only for it to be called off.

"They just said that I wasn't well enough, but they could have said that before they got me down there."

Now Mrs Harris is waiting to see if she is recalled for another operation.

No-one from the hospital was available for comment.