HOSPITAL emergency departments are struggling to cope with serious staff shortages, resulting in some shifts being left uncovered and causing havoc to existing quality and safety standards.

HOSPITALS will be penalised financially for failing to refer patients to the National Treatment Fund (NTPF) for surgery, Health Minister Mary Harney has warned.

UP to 10,000 cancer patients, relatives and their friends marched in Co Donegal in protest at the area’s lack of cancer of services, which they blamed on their “geographic and political isolation”.

IT is difficult to reconcile the league table of Irish hospitals with the reality of the health service.

HOSPITALS guilty of bad management and delaying the discharge of patients have been hit with fines totalling €4.4 million.