KEEP the Horton General, and chairman Keith Strangwood in particular, were very interested in Marion Judd’s letter to the Oxford Mail (June 24) in which she says that it is “management who decide how many operating theatres stay open at any one time”.

KTHG has seen the statement issued by the Oxford University Hospitals Trust regarding Mr Strangwood’s experience in which Greg Sadler, clinical director of surgery at OUHT says “All patients who are referred to us as surgical patients are triaged (assessed) by surgeons.

Of these, only about 20 per cent of patients will actually require surgery.

These cases are then prioritised depending on the seriousness of the patient’s condition and the urgency of the surgery.

A person can therefore be considered to be an ‘emergency’ surgical patient but not require immediate surgery.

For the record, the dictionary definition of emergency is “demanding immediate action” whilst the definition of immediate is “occurring at once; without delay”. The definition of oxymoron is “figure of speech with pointed contradiction of seeming contradictories”.

CHARLOTTE BIRD
Press & PR, Keep the Horton General Acre Ditch, Sibford Gower