Not a single hospital has been fined for failure to implement a policy that is supposed to reduce overcrowding in emergency departments — at a time when numbers on trolleys are at record levels.

Not a single hospital has been fined for failure to implement a policy that is supposed to reduce overcrowding in emergency departments — at a time when numbers on trolleys are at record levels.

A 1,000-space multi-storey carpark, a “Mercy Quarter” plaza, and a hospital two-and-a-half times the size of the existing facility are among proposals contained in a confidential document outlining expansion plans for the Mercy University Hospital (MUH).

Health Minister Simon Harris is to meet with consultants at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) in the new year amid fears that women face delayed cancer diagnoses on foot of difficulties accessing timely gynaecological services.

If you’re looking for its Achilles heel, you won’t find it in the labour wards or the neonatal unit. But are colossal gynaecology waiting lists threatening the reputation of Ireland’s newest maternity hospital? Health Correspondent Catherine Shanahan says consultants are at breaking point and women’s lives are being put at risk