LIFE-SAVING surgery to close a hole in tot Carenza Dealey's heart has been cancelled three times amid claims of a nurse shortage.

Exhausted parents Yvette and Garry Dealey, of Widmer End, expressed their anguish after the 13-month-old was again denied treatment on June 20.

Bed shortages, related to nurse numbers, have been blamed for the cancellations at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, which has left the couple in limbo over their daughter's future.

"Enough is enough now," said Mrs Dealey, of George's Hill. "I'm so outraged and furious about this. Our lives are completely up in the air.

"One minute you're being told your baby is about to go into surgery, and the next, we're in the car heading back down the M40. It's so tough to take."

Doctors in Cambridge discovered a hole in Carenza's heart a congenital heart malformation that robs the blood of oxygen after she was born three months prematurely in April 2004, After months of devotion and round-the-clock care, doctors at the Oxford hospital decided it was time to operate, but promises of surgery in May were scuppered by a bed shortage.

Mrs Dealey, 31, added: "We were told a bed was free and invited back on June 13. That was also cancelled. Then, last week, they cancelled again.

"It's not the doctors' and nurses' fault. They've done everything they can. It's the Government who are to blame them and the state of the NHS."

According to Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, last-minute cancellations were forced by bed shortages, linked to a shortage in specialist nurses. A spokesman said: "It's a national problem in terms there aren't the staff there. Every intensive care bed takes up at least six specialist intensive care nurses. We currently have seven of these beds, but can only use six out of the seven."

News of the family's dilemma saw the NHS attract further criticism from Wycombe Tory MP Paul Goodman.

He said Primary Care Health Trusts across Thames Valley were suffering from a lack of funding 18 per cent below the national average. He added: "It's partly money and it's partly that the money is not getting through."

But Diana Garanito, from the Department of Health, said: "There are more nurses and fewer vacancies in the NHS than ever before.

"67,500 nurses have joined the NHS since 1997, and we had the largest ever increase 19,000 last year. There is also a record number of allied health professionals in the NHS 56,000 last year, up from 45,000 in 1997."