Letter: Non-urgent Operations Are Still Life-affecting

Published on: 6 Jan, 2022
Updated on: 6 Jan, 2022

From: George Potter

It’s important to remember what the NHS considers a “non-urgent operation”. A non-urgent operation is one where not having it is not imminently life-threatening.

And that definition is so broad that “non-urgent” encompasses operations needed to stop people living in agony, to be able to work or even to be able to maintain their ability to have children.

When some people argue that we should “ride out” this wave of covid, or think that it’s fine to do the things we would normally do because Omicron isn’t as “severe”, we should remember that things like this show that the human cost of that attitude (including the number of people disabled by Covid), is immense.

George potter is a Lib Dem borough and county councillor but is writing in his private capacity.