The long-awaited O’Neill report into the abuses at Leas Cross nursing home will be published in the next hour, and has been described as shocking by the Minister for Health.

The long-awaited Leas Cross report will be published by the Health Service Executive today.

FOR years, activists campaigning for improved cancer services have argued the obvious: patient outcomes are reflected in access to quality treatment.

IT is a harrowing but incontrovertible fact that the further a patient lives from a centre of treatment, the greater the chance of becoming another victim of cancer.

VULNERABLE pensioners are being put at risk of abuse because the Government refuses to “name and shame” nursing homes the HSE knows are sub-standard, Fine Gael claimed last night.

An independent report on Leas Cross nursing home will not be made public until those named in it have the right to reply, it emerged tonight.

A TOTAL of 492 children were deemed homeless in 2004, according to the latest provisional figures from the Health Services Executive.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) will have to fork out over €6 million in back rent for a health centre which has lain idle for more than two-and-a-half years.

AN inquiry into a women’s support centre which helped facilitate private adoptions in the 1990s is underway, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE).

THE owner of Leas Cross nursing home yesterday made a desperate bid to retain residents, offering its services free for six months.

THE health authorities had a highly critical report on the Leas Cross nursing home in Dublin almost a full year before a television programme exposed substandard conditions there, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has confirmed.

PETER McKENNA died of septicaemia just 12 days after being admitted to Leas Cross nursing home in Swords, Co Dublin.

NURSES are demanding that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern declare that the accident and emergency (A&E) crisis is a national emergency.

Niamh Nolan

Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome have an insatiable appetite and can wipe out the contents of a fridge in an hour. Claire O’Sullivan talks to one family whose children suffer from the disorder.

DEATHS caused by Ireland’s biggest killers - heart attack and stroke - could be halved using a range of preventative interventions, a unique pilot project has indicated.

The report on Róisín Ruddle’s death offers answers but is overshadowed by the failures of a system that turned a critically-ill child away, says Catherine Shanahan

The race against waste steps up a gear in the New Year with a radical action plan to cut millions of tonnes of rubbish dumped by hospitals and universities.

ALCOHOL abuse is leading to the sharp rise in sexually transmitted infections (STI), which are now at their highest-ever recorded level, Health Minister Mary Harney said yesterday.

Dublin’s Trinity College has reportedly become the latest third-level institution to be affected by a countrywide outbreak of mumps.

Third level students have been advised to get the MMR vaccination.

The Eastern Regional Health Authority has issued a public health warning on the dangers of water activities after three canoeists contracted Weils disease.

BREAST screening facilities for Cork and Galway will not be ready until 2007 - seven years after the proposed nationwide programme was started in the east of the country, it emerged yesterday.

IRELAND is ranked towards the top of the European drug league, particularly for cocaine and ecstasy, according to a new report.

In April, 5,000 people brought Killorglin to a standstill in a bid to save Billy Burke's life. Donal Hickey was there on that emotion-filled day.

The Government's spending watchdog has presented a special report on the health sector to the Dáil.

A STAGGERING 50% of children have decayed teeth by the age of 12, a new survey has found.

The Health Research Board has reported a four-fold increase in the number of people seeking treatment for drugs like heroin outside the area covered by the Eastern Regional Health Authority.

MORE women have died from breast cancer in the Republic than Northern Ireland because of the lack of national screening problem.

MORE than 60 calls a day were logged by a national helpline set up to deal with concerns about the organ retention controversy in its first week of operation.

THE number of measles cases doubled last year, raising fears of an epidemic.

TWO more hospitals have revealed they supplied pituitary glands from deceased patients to pharmaceutical companies, bringing to 22 the number of hospitals that have admitted their involvement so far.

REGIONS outside greater Dublin are at the early stages of a cocaine epidemic, a health expert warned yesterday.

Drug-related problems trebled outside the Eastern Regional Health Authority’s area between 1998 and 2002, according to a study published today by the Health Research Board.

THE number of beds available at one of the country’s main hospitals has dropped steadily over the last three years, despite Government promises to boost bed numbers.

THE Taoiseach has hit out at residents’ organisations who object to the siting of hostels for the homeless in their neighbourhoods.

UP TO 200,000 people in this country don’t know they have diabetes — a potentially fatal condition.

A SURVIVORS’ group has welcomed the appointment of an international expert who will review a surgical procedure that condemned hundreds of women to a lifetime of pain and suffering.

UP to 30 women have had surgery for gynaecological problems postponed to facilitate theatre repairs in the National Maternity Hospital.

The Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) has issued a warning about the dangers of sun exposure.

A CHARITY centre catering for dozens of voluntary groups in Dublin has been saved from imminent closure.

A charity centre which was due to close in two weeks has been rescued by a €200,000 emergency grant.

LABOUR PARTY leader Pat Rabbitte has accused the Government of withholding statistics he had requested on non-Irish hospital births until the referendum vote was over.