A FORMER prison officer who has been living as a woman for six years has criticised health bosses who have denied her surgery.

Transsexual Michelle Collins was in the RAF for 12 years and spent 13 years as a prison officer.

The 61-year-old plans to sue Newcastle heath chiefs over the six-year wait for her sex-swap operation.

Michelle, of Walkerdene, Newcastle, has been taking hormones and living as a woman for six years.

Health bosses said she cannot have the final surgery in the North-East because of a lack of local services. She said: "I should have been born a woman, but I was not. I should have lived as a woman, but have not. Now I am determined to die as one."

North-East patients who want to change sex have to travel to see psychiatrists in Edinburgh and Leeds for what should be a two to three-year treatment programme. Twice-married Michelle said she was fed-up waiting for surgery.

A spokeswoman for Newcastle Primary Care Trust said: "The person who was running our specialist service has retired.

"A group has been set up to look at this issue and service-users have been invited on to this group.

"We are doing everything that we can to find a resolution to this problem and help people like Michelle."

Len Fenwick, the chief executive of Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We do have the necessary expertise to perform male-to-female reassignment surgery, but we need a programme of work that can effectively be managed to a standard. The service cannot be provided ad hoc."