There are at least 171 patients sleeping on hospital trolleys in Irish hospitals today, according to the latest count from the Irish Nurses Organisation.

A protest is due to be held at Monaghan General Hospital this morning to highlight ongoing local anger over the downgrading of the facility.

Monaghan Co Council is holding an emergency meeting today to discuss the ending of acute care at Monaghan General Hospital.

ROUND-the-clock emergency care will cease at Monaghan General Hospital (MGH) on July 22 and patients with an acute illness or in need of acute surgery will have to travel elsewhere.

The closure of key services including accident and emergency wards at Monaghan General Hospital will undoubtedly threaten lives, it was warned today.

A woman involved in a traffic accident outside the gates of Monaghan General Hospital has been taken to Cavan Hospital, a 40-minute drive away.

AN average of 50 medical patients a day are occupying surgical beds in the Mid Western Regional hospital in Limerick, a Health Service Executive document has revealed.

PATIENTS are having to wait up to nine months for bowel cancer tests, instead of within six weeks of seeing their GP, research shows.

A major rally is being held in Dublin later today to highlight cutbacks in the health service.

A High Court action brought on behalf of a 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, who requires constant care and attention as a result of the injuries she sustained during his birth at Monaghan Hospital, has been settled today for €3m.

Cavan and Monaghan hospitals are said to be facing a catastrophic situation due to a decision by the HSE to discontinue the ventilation facility at Monaghan General Hospital.

PATIENTS in the north-east will die because the Health Service Executive will continue to cut back on services even if plans to develop a new regional hospital are shelved, a doctor warned yesterday.

A DOCTOR whose name was removed from the British medical register last year can continue to work in Ireland provided he does not work in any independent capacity.

LIMERICK’S Mid-Western Maternity Hospital was last night named and shamed as the worst place in Ireland for patients’ meals.

Two hospitals in the north-east are to lose their emergency departments within months, a leaked report revealed today.

A DEPARTMENT store owner who led a cavalcade of around 100 commercial trucks, vans and lorries to Dublin yesterday to protest over the future of Monaghan General Hospital warned that the local business community will be making their vote count in the general election.

The Minister for Health Mary Harney is being given a proposal for the restoration of services at Monaghan General Hospital.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney will be urged, on the eve of Valentine’s Day to show she has a heart.

THE Medical Council has refused to comment on its plans for a number of doctors criticised following the death of a man who bled to death at Monaghan General Hospital after no bed could be found to allow him have emergency surgery.

GROUPS opposed to the reduction of services in Monaghan General Hospital said there’s been a “shift in attitude” from the Government on plans for changing the health service in the north-east.

Around 600 campaigners against the downgrading of Monaghan General Hospital are protesting outside the Dáil today.

Campaigners against the downgrading of Monaghan General Hospital are planning to mount a protest outside the Dáil today.

Family, friends and neighbours of four young men killed in a road crash in Monaghan have been plunged into a deep state of shock, it was claimed today.

Four young men were killed today in a crash in Monaghan.

Independent TD Paudge Connolly has said he is prepared to support the Government if the Progressive Democrats abandon their coalition with Fianna Fáil.

I CONGRATULATE the 7,000-plus demonstrators who spoiled the party/propaganda photo shoot for the Fianna Fáil party hacks at the recent opening of the Monaghan bypass in protest against the planned closure of Monaghan General Hospital.

PLANS to downgrade Monaghan General Hospital have caused a major split among local Fianna Fáil politicians as the controversial hospital reform plans are set to become major issues in the run-up to the general election.

LAST week’s report into the death of pensioner Pat Joe Walsh at Monaghan General Hospital has been dismissed as ‘a mishmash of prejudice and opinion’ by campaigners.

HOSPITAL consultants say a Health Service Executive (HSE) directive that all patients at Monaghan General Hospital needing emergency surgery must be transferred immediately to Cavan General Hospital is unworkable.

MOST of the poorest performers in the latest hospital hygiene audit are in Cork, with the city’s South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital emerging as one of two dirtiest hospitals in the country.

PEOPLE go to hospital hoping to be cured — not to be put at risk of infection from life-threatening bugs like MRSA which thrive in dirty environments.

IT will take more than a new hospital to resolve the difficulties facing the health service in the north-east region. Yet, the proposed 700-bed facility announced yesterday is a significant step in the right direction.

CAMPAIGNERS for improved services at Monaghan General Hospital have expressed hope that an official report into the death of an elderly farmer at the hospital last year will result in major changes to health services in the north-east.

PATIENTS in the north-east are in dire need of a new, centrally located hospital, but instead services have been downgraded and there have been multiple patient deaths, doctors said yesterday at the Irish Medical Organisation’s AGM in Kerry.

A PUBLIC inquiry into the quality of hospital care in the north-east is expected to be held at the end of April.

Overcrowding at hospitals in Cavan and Drogheda is reaching crisis point with patients facing extreme hardship and inhumane conditions, the Irish Nurses Organisation claimed today.

ANOTHER woman has given birth in an ambulance by the side of the road following the closure of the maternity unit at Monaghan General Hospital.

ONE of the last patients to be discharged from Monaghan General Hospital’s acute surgical ward at the weekend was the elderly mother of the head of the group campaigning against the continual downgrading of the hospital.

Campaigners from Co Monaghan will drive a hearse to the Dáil later today in protest over the reduction in services at Monaghan General Hospital.

Protesters have warned that they will step up their campaign for acute emergency services at Monaghan General Hospital if they don't get a top-level meeting with the Health Service Executive.

INDEPENDENT TD James Breen was ordered from the Dáil yesterday after waving an Irish Examiner story about MRSA fatalities at Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and demanding greater patient safety in hospitals.

A PUBLIC inquiry is to be established by the Monaghan Health Services Action Group (HSAG) to examine the quality of care being offered by Monaghan General Hospital.

Hospitals in the north-east have been ordered to process transfers of patients from Monaghan General Hospital immediately.

THE needless death of a patient in Monaghan General Hospital (MGH) has caused national outrage. The current trawl for a scapegoat is misconceived, however.