The Health Service Executive’s €14bn budget is unlikely to make any serious headway in alleviating difficulties in the health service, Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman Billy Kelleher claimed yesterday.

The Irish Hospitals Consultants Association has claimed revised HSE pay proposals for its members will fail to attract the number of “high calibre” consultants that are urgently needed.

The cost of private health insurance could rise yet again if insurance companies force private hospital consultants to pay an extra 42% in premiums to protect against medical negligence claims.

An organisation representing doctors has said Ireland is facing a critical shortage of trainees.

THE Irish Medical Council has said the decision by St Vincent’s Hospital and the Mater Hospital to postpone life-saving drug trials because the drug involved required the use of contraceptives is not a matter for them because it is covered by each hospital’s contract.

Eddie Cassidy

A PATIENTS’ group last night appealed to hospital consultants to suspend their industrial action as more than 200 patients due for operations this week have had their procedures cancelled.

NURSES last night rowed in behind hospital consultations in advance of next week’s industrial action over an insurance indemnity dispute.

HOSPITAL consultants yesterday hit out at Health Minister Micheál Martin’s plan to fight the €800 million historic liabilities they could face in the British courts.

THE State will not pay the insurance premiums for hospital consultants treating private patients, Health Minister Mícheál Martin said yesterday.

SHUTTING down six maternity hospitals outside Dublin would put thousands of women’s lives at risk unless they were replaced by proper midwifery services, a leading obstetrician warned yesterday.

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin is considering abolishing half the country’s health boards to improve efficiency and reduce the 70% of his department’s budget that now goes on staff salaries.

Political Reporter