More information on waiting times in hospitals would save everybody a great deal of anxiety, writes Terry Prone

HEALTH Minister Leo Varadkar’s plan to take patients on trolleys out of A&E and put them, together with their trolleys, on wards, can be criticised, but medically it would have advantages. 

Waiting times in accident and emergency departments in England have fallen to their worst levels in more than a decade, with just 92.6% of patients being seen within four hours.

Movember is more than a bit of a laugh as it’s getting men of all ages talking about prostate cancer says Arlene Harris.

Closing hospital accident and emergency (A&E) departments has knock-on effects that lead to more patient deaths, a US study has shown.

A police investigation has been launched after a mother had hair extensions glued to her head with super strength glue.

Tune in to BBC 1 at 10.30pm as Graham Norton is joined on the sofa by Hollywood stars Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Charlize Theron and Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane, plus Coldplay perform A Sky Full of Stars.

A mental health expert says the policy of admitting psychiatric patients to emergency departments needs to be "looked at".

Helen O’Callaghan talks to five people in highly pressured jobs and lifestyles about how they manage their work/life balance.

IF you can tell a lot about a restaurant by the state of it’s toilets, then you can surely tell a lot about a nation by the state of its main children’s hospital.

Health Minister Dr James Reilly said today that a survey highlighting a shortage of senior doctors in Emergency Departments is misunderstood.

A MAN who died on a trolley in the accident and emergency department of a Dublin hospital had been waiting for five hours to be seen by the medical team when he collapsed suddenly, an inquest has heard.

BANNED head shop drugs are still widely available on the internet, while Customs officials have made 23 seizures already this year, it emerged yesterday.

The Health Service Executive has admitted that two out of every five patients wait longer than its target of six hours to be seen in Accident and Emergency departments.

ALMOST 12,000 people attended hospital emergency departments last year seeking medical help for deliberate self-injury.

The number of patients waiting on trolleys for a hospital bed was at its worst last year.

The number of sick people waiting on trolleys and chairs for a hospital bed fell below 500 today.

MEMBERS of the force look set to be trained on how to monitor and best detain suspects on methadone after proposals made at an inquest into the death of a suspected killer in garda custody.

Almost 9,000 operations were cancelled in Irish hospitals in the first half of this year, according to figures obtained by Fine Gael.

THE lives of drug-abusing teenagers have been put further at risk due to the failure of the HSE to pass on almost e1 million in funding for a treatment centre dealing with clients as young as 12 years.

IRISH Nurses Organisation (INO) general secretary Liam Doran warned yesterday that transferring A&E services from Ennis and Nenagh general hospitals into the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick will make a bad situation worse.

LIKE most people, I have been very angry and upset about the HSE’s attempts to centralise A&E services.

AN education programme is being introduced in accident and emergency & departments to ensure women suffering from heart disease receive the same standard of care as men.

An ambulance crew which left a neo-natal patient to hospital was kept waiting there for six and a half hours before she was moved elsewhere, it was revealed today.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen rejected claims children will suffer due to a sixfold increase in A&E charges.

PARENTS of young children have been warned about the dangers of unsecured television sets after a spate of tragic accidents.

THREE family homes for patients wanting to leave institutional care have been left lying empty for seven years by health chiefs.

A BED was eventually found yesterday for an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease who spent about 65 hours on a trolley in Dublin’s Mater Hospital following a heart attack.

A LOCUM consultant will be employed at the A&E department in Kerry General Hospital (KGH), Tralee, for some time to come, it emerged yesterday.

OVERCROWDING in hospital A&Es remains the root cause of job dissatisfaction among emergency nurses despite efforts by the Health Service Executive to improve the situation, a recent study shows.

FOUR nurses made medical history yesterday by becoming the first entrants to a register that recognises their right to prescribe drugs.

A CHEST pain clinic set up to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac patients at Cork University Hospital is to close over Christmas.

EMERGENCY medicine doctors have claimed conditions in hospital A&E departments are returning to crisis point.

THERE’S a justifiable anger in the air about the untimely and unnecessary death of Susie Long from bowel cancer due to the seven-month delay in getting a colonoscopy because she could not afford private healthcare.

ATTENDANCES at accident and emergency (A&E) departments have risen twice as fast as the increase in population, new research shows.

At least seven A&E departments nationwide are unfit for their purpose, a major health service study revealed today.

THE Labour party claims that the plan to develop co-located private hospitals on State lands will result in loss of revenue from insurance companies of €145 million.

The Green Party today pledged to deliver 2,000 extra acute beds in its first five years if elected to Government on May 24.

A quarter of all patients who attended A&E departments at Irish hospitals in the past year were dissatisfied with the experience, according to the Health Service Executive.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) in Limerick was yesterday forced to intervene in a bitter row between a top consultant and nurses at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital.

HOSPITALS will forfeit a slice of their annual funding for failing to tackle the A&E crisis and to maintain acceptable hygiene standards, it was learned yesterday.

AGGRESSIVE drunks will be forced out of Accident and Emergency (A&E) and into special “wet rooms” under a €500 million rescue plan for casualty care units to be unveiled by Fine Gael and Labour today.

A MOTHER-of-one died from a perforated bowel after being initially sent home by doctors who told her she was suffering from food poisoning.

More than 11,000 people went to A&E departments last year after attempting to self harm, according to figures released by the National Centre for Youth Mental Health.