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.

Family doctors in Galway have been told by the laboratory manager at Galway University Hospitals not to refer patients for blood tests on the grounds that they do not provide a phlebotomy service for GPs.

The HSE has confirmed that a number of patients operated on by a surgeon whose spinal procedures were the subject of an audit have since died.

More than 13,000 scheduled operations were cancelled by hospitals during the first eight months of this year for reasons including staffing issues and bed shortages, the HSE has confirmed.

The health minister has been urged to halt a change of name for the group of public hospitals in the west.

Over €70m owed to public hospitals is being held up by consultant doctors who have failed to sign off on private health insurance claim forms.

Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae has reacted angrily to a new proposal from the HSE to ban smoking on a hospital campus in the south west.

An independent TD has condemned a smoking ban on the grounds of a 355-bed hospital, branding it “silly, stupid, and insane’’.

Four employees were sacked by the HSE West over the past year for abusing the sick leave scheme.

The chairman of the West Regional Health Forum has called for ‘no more delays’ in the publication of the report into the death of Savita Halappanavar last October.

The chair of the HSE West Forum has described as “absolutely outrageous” the failure of one consultant to sign forms that would release €500,000 to the cash-strapped HSE.

The non-attendance of about 35,000 outpatients for appointments in two Galway public hospitals last year has contributed to the largest waiting list in the country.

The HSE West is set to see its budget cut by €104m, have nurses account for 70% of all regional retirees this month and witness as many as 132 long-term care beds axed, in a bid to cut costs.

CLOSE to 600 patients in need of life-saving cancer and dialysis treatment face no longer being ferried to and from treatment by ambulance due to cutbacks in patient transport services.

THERE have been calls for the Minister for Health to intervene in at University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) after it was found to be the worst-performing hospital in the country for the second month running.

TEN major hospitals have been forced to offer services despite failing to reach the necessary staffing levels due to ongoing public service employment restrictions.

HEALTH Service Executive staff in Galway have been given leave to attend the Galway Races despite reductions in staffing levels and cutbacks in frontline services across the organisation.

OVER 450 patients will have an anxious wait over the weekend before finding out if they may have been infected with the hepatitis C virus by a surgeon who worked at three hospitals in the west and north-west.

MANAGEMENT and staff at the biggest hospital in the west of Ireland have been told by Health Minister Mary Harney to become more efficient and make better use of resources.

AN internal hospital report calling for infection control improvements to prevent a repeat of last year’s deadly clostridium difficile outbreak at University Hospital Galway (UHG) has yet to be implemented six months after it was concluded.

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.