COMPLAINTS about a nursing home in Cork were acted on immediately, the Health Service Executive (HSE) insisted yesterday.

PATIENTS at a Cork nursing home were treated “in an appalling way” despite the fact it was owned by a doctor, the Dáil heard yesterday.

HAVING been a social worker in the field of mental health care, both in Ireland and Britain, I welcomed your well-balanced editorial (Irish Examiner, July 24) in which you exposed “the scandal of using Irish prisons as ‘psychiatric waiting rooms’ — the equivalent of A&E trolleys in overcrowded hospitals” and the failure by the State to address the problem of mental illness in society.

FOR years, activists campaigning for improved cancer services have argued the obvious: patient outcomes are reflected in access to quality treatment.

STAFF at the former Southern Health Board were overpaid almost €670,000 in the past three years, it has emerged.

HEALTH boards paid out €85 million last year to keep just 600 children in residential care, new figures have revealed.

Most of the country's health boards have yet to appoint case officers to deal with the 20,000 elderly people believed to be victims of abuse, writes Pat Brosnan.

NURSING home patients are being forced to pay over €1,000 each year for incontinence wear even though the Southern Health Board was told three years ago they should not be charged.

A HOSPITAL which yesterday admitted retaining the foetuses of 11 women denied any tests were carried out on the babies’ remains.

The country’s first mental health service for toddlers may be on its way, but it’s long overdue writes Claire O’Sullivan.

A PUBLICAN who said he flouted the smoking ban to save his business was given almost a year to get his house in order yesterday.

Twenty patients were lying on trolleys awaiting treatment at the busy Accident and Emergency Department at Cork University Hospital (CUH) earlier today.

THE Southern Health Board has confirmed it is to take its first prosecution against a pub for not complying with the smoking ban.

A HEALTH board yesterday unveiled a blueprint to improve services for disabled people in Cork and Kerry, but has not secured the €45 million needed to implement the plan.

THE Southern Health Board has admitted paying out over €1m to a management consultancy firm two years ago in breach of statutory regulations.

ASSAULTS on staff and a high use of physical restraint has led to a call for a total review of behaviour management in a unit for troubled children.

BEREAVEMENT counsellors are available, if requested, to offer support to the grandparents who discovered the remains of a newborn baby in their West Cork home.

AN activity scheme aimed at tackling childhood obesity has been launched in the south east as it emerged one-in-three youngsters there is overweight and one in twelve obese.

Eoin English

Catherine Shanahan

SECURITY will be stepped up at Munster’s largest hospital after a man threatened to jump from a tower crane on site.

DESPITE the fact that a €5 million upgrade in cancer treatment equipment and additional consultants was announced for Cork University Hospital last week, there is only one specialist social worker attached to the unit for the whole of Munster.

PARENTS were warned yesterday of an outbreak of measles in Cork and Kerry, if they don’t vaccinate their children against this potentially fatal disease.

THE health board at the centre of an investigation into its failure to put consultancy contracts out to public tender was ticked off for breaking similar rules less than a decade ago.

THE Labour Party severely criticised Health Minister Micheál Martin yesterday for his failure to staff a newly-built €16 million accident and emergency unit which has been lying idle for almost eight months.

THE awarding of €1 million worth of business by a health board to a consultancy firm, without the contracts going to tender, is to be probed by a public finance watchdog.

A health board today launched an investigation into an alleged assault on a Kerry nursing home resident by a member of staff.

DECISIONS on the release of contentious records under the Freedom Of Information Act are being delayed by years due to a lack of staff in the appeals body.

THE number of underage drinkers treated for alcohol addiction in two health boards has more than trebled in three years, according to new reports.

Why can’t a country, which reported an Exchequer surplus of €272m recently, look after its most vulnerable, wonders Catherine Shanahan.

A TRAINING project which helps pub and club staff identify and deal with the negative effects of alcohol or drugs is to be expanded.

A SETTLEMENT understood to be for over €3 million was reached yesterday in the High Court in the case of a wheelchair-bound father-of-three who sustained serious injuries in a road accident and hit his head on the ground after falling off a hospital table about a month later.

A PSYCHIATRIC patient who fell from a third floor window at Tralee General Hospital on Wednesday afternoon was yesterday being treated for his injuries in the hospital’s general section.

MATERNITY hospitals in the south may refuse to carry out blood tests and ultrasound scans on pregnant women who are cared for by independent midwives.

CHILDREN awaiting specialist dental treatment in the health board area with the largest waiting list face further delays after a consultant orthodontist declined a job offer.

THE preliminary report on the fire damage to St Finbarr’s maternity hospital in Cork is due today.

THE new chairman of the Southern Health Board has warned the falling age profile of drinkers will result in huge problems for society.

MORE than three-quarters of Southern Health Board (SHB) staff suffered from psychological or emotional stress last year, according to the board’s annual report.

A CASH-STRAPPED council has been warned not to expect land for free — or even at a reasonable price — from the Southern Health Board.

THE State will not pay the insurance premiums for hospital consultants treating private patients, Health Minister Mícheál Martin said yesterday.

HEALTH MINISTER Micheál Martin is “buck-passing” on a funds issue threatening the development of a hospital where some equipment would not be out of place in the Third World, FG TD Jim O’Keeffe has said.

HEALTH board chief executives have undergone formal media training to stave off criticisms of their staff contained in two soon-to-be-published health reports.

ONE of the most valuable pieces of land in Cork City is set to go on the market shortly, following the announcement that Southern Health Board management is to seek approval to sell off St Kevin’s Hospital in Shanakiel.

HOSPITALS in Cork and Kerry have been forced to cut services this summer to keep within budget.