OVER 100,000 public servants providing frontline services in healthcare, security and emergency response will resist Government attempts to impose the cutbacks proposed in the McCarthy report.

Health Minister Mary Harney has warned that the scale of the health cuts next year will be unprecedented. She told a conference on health funding that €1.2 billion needs to be cut from the existing €15bn in health spending.

If you stay around long enough in the one position in politics, you will accumulate a lot of enemies. Harney has not lacked for courage or shirked conflict. Like all warriors, eventually the scars of battle take their toll. Too many health commentators, professionals and leaders want rid of her

THE Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) yesterday pointed out that the number of people on trolleys around the country in June was almost 30% higher than in the same month last year.

DOCTORS and nurses have warned patients’ lives are being placed at risk as a result of Government cutbacks including a Health Service Executive embargo on recruiting healthcare staff.

INDUSTRIAL action is thought to be on the cards following what was described as a very angry meeting of nursing staff in the Mercy University Hospital in Cork where management are cutting premium payments to staff in a bid to save money.

NURSES fighting health cutbacks have called off a work stoppage at a west Cork hospital today to ballot on new proposals.

MEMBERS of the Irish Nurses’ Organisation have voted to carry out a one-hour work stoppage at a Co Cork hospital over cutbacks being imposed by the HSE.

The Progressive Democrats are to wind up after 23 years in existence, it was announced today.

Members of the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) today threatened to escalate their row over shorter working hours.

The president of the Irish Nurses’ Organisation has called on the Government to take action to alleviate the hardship caused by rising nursing home charges.

SOUTHDOC, the out of hours GP service, yesterday pledged there would no scaling down of its services to patients in Cork and Kerry, despite a €800,000 budget cutback.

NURSES have accused the Health Service Executive (HSE) of reneging on work commitments for the state’s graduate nurses.

UNIONS have complained of being left in the dark over widely expected cutbacks in the health services over the coming months.

CONSTRUCTION work on a €10 million A&E department at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee is due to start in August, the HSE confirmed yesterday.

Universal health insurance is the only way to address stark inequalities in patient care in Ireland, it was claimed today.

NURSES said yesterday they would give the Labour Court a last chance to deal with their pay claim before they considered the “nuclear option” of industrial action.

THE Psychiatric Nurses’ Association will spend the next number of weeks consulting with members to determine what action to take in response to the failure of benchmarking to grant any pay increase to the majority of nurses.

THE Psychiatric Nurses’ Association is to consider all-out strike following the failure of benchmarking to deliver any pay increase for the bulk of its members.

Public service unions were tonight furious that an independent benchmarking body recommended little or no pay rises for their workers.

THE Labour Court has told the Health Service Executive it is not entitled to claim back overpayments made to more than 100 nurses through the controversial Personal Payroll and Related Systems (PPARS).

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

UP to 50 nurses a day phone in sick at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, the Health Service Executive claimed yesterday.

THE twin evils of drunkenness and anti social behaviour are the targets of a new advertising campaign launched yesterday.

NEARLY 3,000 operations were cancelled in April and May, new Health Service Executive (HSE) figures revealed last night.

Hospital consultants are staging the first day of an industrial dispute over new contracts today.

Nurses and midwives are to be balloted over the next week on whether to continue their 44-day long work-to-rule after today agreeing to stop nationwide walkouts.

FINE Gael yesterday insisted that its stance on the nurses’ dispute is not at odds with a policy document on benchmarking it published in Killarney three-and-a-half years’ ago.

THE nurses’ dispute is set for a major escalation if the Health Service Executive (HSE) goes ahead with its threat to cut nurses’ pay by 20% next week.

THE planned escalation of the nurses’ dispute, which would have spread to 50 more hospitals throughout the country this week, has been put on hold for talks being brokered by the National Implementation Body (NIB).

UPWARDS of 200 nurses yesterday staged what they described as a ‘silent and dignified protest’ when Health Minister Mary Harney came to Tralee to open a new unit at Kerry General Hospital.

ANNOUNCING their support for the nurses in their pay dispute, the Association of Secondary Teachers’ Ireland (ASTI) yesterday said the power to resolve the matter lies with the greater trade union movement.

THERE have been criticisms against nurses and the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) for allegedly compromising patient care.

THE health service is facing into a weekend of turmoil with hospitals across the country failing to cope after just three days of the work-to-rule by nurses.

THE immediate fate of Cork’s new maternity hospital will be decided at a crucial meeting of midwives tonight.

A breakthrough could be in sight in a bitter row regarding the staffing of Cork’s new maternity hospital, according to The Evening Echo.

THE dispute between nursing unions and healthemployers worsened yesterday when more than 700 nurses took part in the first phase of planned nationwideindustrial action.

MORE than eight months after an elderly woman suffocated while strapped to a chair in a north Cork nursing home, two suspended nurses have still not been interviewed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) over the incident and the HSE has not completed its investigation.

THE emerging two-tier health system which is based on ability to pay and not need should be replaced with a fair and transparent public health service, according to the nurses’ representative body.

THE country’s largest union SIPTU has pledged the support of its members for a possible strike by two other unions in the country’s hospitals.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney has intervened in a row over staffing levels which has threatened to scupper the opening of a new €75 million maternity hospital.

THE country’s biggest nursing union remains on a collision course with management at Cork’s new maternity hospital threatening to scupper its opening date of March 24.

HOPES of a breakthrough in the midwives row threatening the opening of a €75 million maternity hospital were dashed last night.

MORE than 100 patients scheduled to have surgery at Beaumont Hospital in January had their operations postponed because of bed shortages.