THEY'VE struggled for years with ill-fitting, painful artificial limbs in a futile effort to live normal lives.

Three young Hampshire amputees have each given up hope that they will ever find false legs to suit their needs on the National Health Service.

Their families' only other option is to fork out thousands of pounds every year while their chil-dren grow to pay for private limbs.

But the NHS holds the key to easing the financial burden by unlocking the cash set aside for their treatment and giving them the chance of receiving a limb of their choice.

Wheelchair users already benefit from a vouch-er scheme that allows them to use NHS money as a contribution towards upgraded models in the private sector. Now, all these one-legged children are asking the government is to give them the same rights as people in wheelchairs.

Their hopes were raised earlier this summer when Health Secretary Frank Dobson pledged in the Commons to consider helping the family of New Forest bomb blast victim Laura Giddings in their efforts to get financial help for young amputees.

But he was later accused of making a "meaningless sound bite" after junior health minister John Hutton wrote to New Forest East MP Julian Lewis ruling out allowing Laura's parents to go to a contractor of their choice via the NHS.

Laura, nine, lost her leg in a bomb blast at a restaurant in Cape Town last year.

Her family, from Bramshaw in the New Forest, rejected the "Barbie doll" plastic-coated limbs offered to them by the NHS in favour of life-like privately-funded artificial legs.

They have launched a battle to get the NHS to reimburse part of the cost - the equivalent of an NHS limb - and give more choice to people who need fake limbs.

Another little girl who would benefit is four-year-old Hannah Ridout whose mother Sally Doughty is raising more than £5,000 to buy her daughter a much-needed life-like leg.

Sally, 31, of Alderney Close, Lordshill, Southampton, said: "To watch Hannah suffering from the pain of walking around on an ill-fitting leg from the NHS is the most horrific sight.

"Children like Hannah want to walk and a lot of the time they can't so someone should give them the chance to at least choose where their legs are made.

"Having the money from the NHS to make up the cost for private limbs is what these youngsters need."

Her friend Jeanette Gregory, whose seven-year-old son Justin has reached his goal of having a private limb fitted to help him play football following a successful Daily Echo campaign, has welcomed our bid to change government policy.

She wants to meet ministers to argue her case.

Jeanette, of Cumbrian Way, Millbrook, Southampton, said: "They must see for themselves the living proof of how much this affects children's lives.

"Everyone who knows my son, including experts in the NHS, says he is a completely changed child since having his private leg fitted but people like Frank Dobson will only understand the importance of changing the rules if they see it firsthand.

"I would rather confront them face to face because I have all the ammunition I need to prove our case.

"We are quite happy to pay some of the cost towards replacement limbs and repairs but there is money available at the NHS that could be used for that but we are not allowed to have any of it.

"I could take Justin back to the hospital tomorrow and demand an inferior leg and they would have to pay for it, so why can't we have the money set aside for that towards the limbs that have transformed his life," she said.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.