The NHS in Oxfordshire is in meltdown with a £35m deficit.

We have already seen major cuts in Banbury and Oxford. Doctors' posts have been cut in mental health care and there are proposals to shut down mental health services.

The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre surgical ward and the chronic pain Blenheim ward at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford have closed, not to mention the proposed shutdown of the gynaecology ward at The Horton Hospital, Banbury.

Now, with the stopping of hernia, varicose vein and heart ablation operations, we must question why Tony Blair can have his heart ablation operation free on the NHS in record time, but people in Oxfordshire are denied theirs unless they can afford to go private.

The crisis will be even worse next year with a predicted £20m deficit, making the wholesale destruction of services inevitable and the position of The Horton even more precarious. What is Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt doing about this crisis? Absolutely nothing, except blame everyone else and ignore attempts by the Oxfordshire health scrutiny committee to get her to discuss the problems and bring her to account for the Government's mismanagement of the NHS.

We in Banbury have fought hard to retain The Horton and in doing so, the managers of PCTs and the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust have come under fire -- perhaps in some cases unjustly as they can only comply with Government policy and spending priorities.

Now is the time to move up a gear and put the blame and pressure on the instigators of this sorry state of affairs -- the Government.

I ask everyone to write and complain to the ministers responsible, and we should start with Ms Hewitt.

If she will not visit Oxfordshire, we should put pressure on her boss in Downing Street.

Kieron Mallon (Councillor), Easington, Banbury, Oxfordshire County Council