Attendances at hospital emergency departments increased by more than 2% this year compared to the same time last year, it has emerged.

We love a bit of Ed. Actually, scrap that — we love a lot of Ed.

With pressure on emergency departments (EDs) building and influenza rates rising, the head of the HSE’s emergency medicine programme has appealed for people not to make the ED their first port of call at Christmas.

EVEN if the figures released by the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO) recorded that the number of people on trolleys in hospitals last month was down 6% on the 2016 figure, the top-line figure, a record 57,674, is another expression of the dysfunction in our public life.

The HSE is opening a new €24 million emergency department (ED) at University Hospital Limerick today — but the new facility won’t do anything to reduce the numbers on trolleys at the hospital.

Scheduled operations and admissions to Cork University Hospital have been cancelled after 460 people presented at its emergency department (ED) over the bank holiday weekend.

Seven people have died of influenza, six in the space of a fortnight, at a time when emergency departments (EDs) are besieged by patients affected by the flu virus and the winter vomiting bug.

With 528 patients on trolleys for up to 20 hours awaiting hospital beds, emergency medicine consultants have repeated to HSE chiefs the overcrowding crisis will not be solved without extra doctors, nurses and beds.

Minister for Health Simon Harris has said his department is to order a review of bed capacity in hospitals to try to bring the number of working nurses to "adequate levels" writes David Raleigh.

The HSE should be called to account for its spending before the Oireachtas Health Committee, Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher said yesterday.

SIPTU is calling for the HSE to reopen its invitation to the union's members to take part in forums about the overcrowding crisis in hospitals.

HSE chief Tony O’Brien, who has just taken over the emergency department taskforce, says he hopes to have 440 additional acute hospital beds open over the winter to ease overcrowding.

GPs have called for 24-hour access to diagnostic facilities as an urgent and essential first step in easing pressure on hospital emergency departments (EDs).

Cork University Hospital is showing that improvements to patient care and flow are possible through initiatives, investment and collective commitment, writes Tony McNamara

Limerick has cap of 20 patients waiting on trolleys at any one time

As chief executive of the Limerick University Hospital group, Prof Colette Cowan has found herself in one of the most publicly scrutinised posts in the HSE system.

As University Hospital Limerick went on red alert yesterday with another spike in emergency eepartment (ED) trolley patients, all non-urgent elective surgery was cancelled.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has conceded thousands of planned surgeries were cancelled in January in an effort to cope with the daily crisis of overcrowding in emergency departments (EDs).

‘Irish Examiner’ Mid-West correspondent Jimmy Woulfe spent 24 hours in a hospital emergency department recently. He describes his experience of our health service

Beaumont Hospital continues request to the public and GPs to avoid or delay visit to Emergency Department

Increased spending on agency staff and the provision of 41 extra acute beds in Limerick hospitals have been cited as some of the main factors contributing to a €18.5m overspend in a Mid-West group of hospitals.

Jean McConville, who was abducted and murdered by the IRA, squealed as she was dragged away from her family, her son said.

Patients attending Cork University Hospital’s emergency department are being issued “first and final” letters from a debt collection agency on behalf of the hospital.

Kerry General Hospital in Tralee will open the doors to its new Emergency Department this morning.

A new €4m emergency department (ED) opens at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee today.

PRESSURE is set to ease on the emergency department (ED) at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick as a €35 million critical care unit nears completion.

NURSES have suspended walk-outs which they have staged over conditions at the & Emergency Department (ED) of the Mid-West Regional Hospital.

NURSES in Limerick yesterday staged a four-hour work stoppage against “unsafe” overcrowding in the &Mid-West Regional Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED).

A DUBLIN hospital whose emergency department (ED) was described as a “dangerous place” has been given until Monday to come up with measures to reduce the risk to patients.

ALMOST 20,000 people are being forced to wait for outpatient appointments at one of the country’s largest hospitals — with nearly one in four on lists for more than a year.

A NUMBER of Fine Gael members are poised to resign from the HSE South Forum unless Health Minister Dr James Reilly carries out a radical overhaul of the body and makes its officials more accountable to public representatives.

THE bitter political row over cutbacks at smaller hospitals widened last night as it emerged Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore also made broken election pledges to protect Roscommon services.

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny was forced into a humiliating climb-down last night as he denied deliberately misleading voters over hospital closures.

THE mortality rate among heart patients who attend Roscommon Hospital is four times higher than the rate among patients attending University Hospital Galway, the health minister claimed last night.