Health Minister Simon Harris has steered clear of criticising the main oversight bodies involved in the new children’s hospital project for massive cost overruns - instead pointing the finger of blame at professional advisory firms.

Neither the HSE nor the Department of Health have done anything of “substance” to deal with hospital overcrowding, which has reached a record high, with 677 people on trolleys, according to the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine.

Those who advocate for the retention of the Eighth Amendment assert that it has deterred women from accessing abortion ‘Irish law keeps rate of abortion low’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, July 14).

A doctor contracted to provide services to clients of COPE Foundation was paid €123,799 annually, at odds with Department of Health (DOH) salary scales for medical grades.

A young mother, who travelled to Italy for pioneering surgery on her deaf son’s hearing, said she will have to sell her house after the HSE pulled the plug on funding for the operation.

Patients could be required to show their passports at hospitals in the UK under new British government guidelines to tackle health tourism, according to a report.

Not being able to LOOK sad may help to prevent you FEELING sad. Your body may have a greater say in your mood than does your brain. And a dilute poison that flattens your wrinkles also has the potential to lift your spirits.

Over 50 of Jimmy Savile’s sex abuse victims will seek compensation from the BBC, the NHS, the disgraced TV presenter’s estate and other organisations, their lawyer has said.

Jimmy Savile’s alleged catalogue of abuse could have spanned six decades and included around 60 victims, police said.

Gay men will be able to give blood in the UK from today as government restrictions were officially lifted, the British Department of Health said.

The British Government admitted some parts of the country were suffering shortages of flu vaccines as it prepared to reveal the latest death toll from the winter outbreak.

Supermarket group Sainsbury’s today confirmed its interest in adding GP surgeries to branches across the country.

A “FRIGHTENING” report has cast fresh doubts over the drug used to combat bird flu, after two people died after failing to respond to the treatment.

VACCINES to protect against the killer avian flu will not be available in Ireland until early 2006, a senior Department of Health (DoH) official confirmed yesterday.

THE Department of Health (DOH) has spent more than €1.1 million on external public relations expertise since the general election.

Doctors and health workers in England were today warned not to use a pregnancy testing kit on patients after concerns emerged that some women could have been given incorrect results.

A DESPERATE father who is auctioning one of his kidneys online to fund medical treatment for his sick daughter was warned yesterday that he could face prosecution.

The British Department of Health will provide top-up funding for "on-going" research into the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Anti-abortion groups today accused the government of ‘‘cost-cutting’’ and being ‘‘obsessed’’ with abortion after it emerged that women are to be offered faster, easier terminations.

An alleged rape of a 60-year-old woman at a London mental health unit was today being investigated by detectives.

The British victims of the human form of mad cow disease are waiting to hear if they will be offered a potential treatment for the condition.

bidder to run the new Adoption Register for England and Wales, British Health Minister John Hutton announced today.

The couple at the centre of the internet adoption row say they are right to fight a custody battle over the twins.