A senior consultant has described plans by the HSE to establish a trust to oversee the operation of six hospitals in the Mid-West as “rampant managerialism” and “guaranteed to fail”.

CORK University Hospital and Kerry General Hospital have been rewarded for good levels of efficiency — by more than €2 million.

STAFF at Ennis General Hospital are devastated for patients over the Health Service Executive’s plan to close the hospital’s high-dependency unit from next month.

A DRUGS “mule” on board a transatlantic jet was close to death, a court heard yesterday, after one of the bags of cocaine he swallowed burst in his stomach forcing the plane to perform an emergency landing at Shannon Airport.

IN a world first, scientists in Limerick are turning the traditional lullaby on its head by trying to find out if singing them can soothe, not the babies, but pregnant women.

A HSE memo reveals covert plans to further downgrade three mid-west hospitals.

PATIENTS waiting for outpatient appointments with consultants are facing queues up to 18 months long as hospitals deal with an unplanned surge in numbers.

CONTRACTS for Health Minister Mary Harney’s contentious private hospital plan could be signed in April, just a matter of weeks before the general election.

THE Irish Nurses Organisation has warned the Health Service Executive that a new children’s high dependency unit cannot go ahead at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital until all necessary resources are put in place.

TÁNAISTE Mary Harney’s controversial plan for new private hospitals, on existing hospital lands, took a step closer at the weekend with the Health Service Executive (HSE) issuing tender notices for the construction of 11 such facilities.

MORE than 20 hospitals have had their budgets slashed by a total of €9.37 million as a result of inefficiencies in 2004.

TWO non-nationals were fighting for their lives in hospitals last night after separate vicious assaults over the weekend.

A PAIR of brown eyes stare, unseeing, at the hospital ceiling. A father leans over his brain-dead son and points to a graze on his chin.

HOSPITALS found guilty of bad management and keeping patients in beds too long have been hit with fines totalling €6.4 million.

A man accused of murdering a profoundly deaf young man told gardai that he repeatedly punched the victim but that he never intended to kill him, a garda witness told the Central Criminal Court today.