A COUPLE who have waited for months for an operation to correct their baby daughter’s foot deformity have been promised she will be treated soon.

Jaime and Richard Baker, from Murston, near Sittingbourne, fear that Amber, now aged 14 months, will suffer permanent disability if surgery is further delayed at Lewisham Hospital.

Amber was born with a condition called bilateral talipies which makes her feet turn inwards.

Mrs Baker said that when Amber was six months old a consultant paediatrician at Lewisham Hospital, where she was referred for treatment, told them she should have the operation to straighten her feet before she started walking.

But eight months later Amber, who is now struggling to walk on her ankles, is still waiting and last Friday the couple were horrified to discover that the consultant who promised to operate on her had left the hospital a month earlier for another job.

The couple officially complained to Lewisham NHS Trust which runs the hospital. Vivien Rhodes, director of nursing and operations, pledged: "Patients are being given operation dates and Amber should receive a date for operation soon.”

She said that a new locum consultant paediatrician had started at Lewisham and Amber would be given an operation appointment with him.

Mrs Baker, 24, who has another four-year-old daughter, Jade, said: “The sooner the operation is done, the more chance she has of walking normally. She wants to walk but she is frustrated.”