Less than a year into his high-profile job, the HSE national director of acute hospital services has tendered his resignation.

The HSE says "a constrained" environment has contributed to its problems with waiting lists for tests.

Hospitals must make a €150m saving next year despite getting increased funding, it emerged yesterday.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation will ask the HSE to employ more nurses and create more step-down beds at one of the country’s busiest hospitals when it meets with the HSE’s assistant national director of acute hospitals, Angela Fitzgerald, tomorrow.

AT LEAST seven accident and emergency units in the State are unfit for their purpose, a Health Service Executive report reveals.

At least seven A&E departments nationwide are unfit for their purpose, a major health service study revealed today.

THE Irish Nurses Organisation and Psychiatric Patients Association will decide this morning whether to escalate their action into regional work stoppages around the country.

HOSPITALS will forfeit a slice of their annual funding for failing to tackle the A&E crisis and to maintain acceptable hygiene standards, it was learned yesterday.

In a reaction to the public outcry elicited by television exposure, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has set itself a deadline of next November to eliminate the need for trolleys and chairs in accident and emergency units through the country.

It may not have overshadowed the elaborate commemorative ceremonies planned for tomorrow’s marking of the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising, but the Lie Down And Be Counted protest delivered another apt message to the Government.

NEW admission lounges for patients waiting for a hospital bed will not see the light of day unless additional in-patient nurses are appointed, the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) warned yesterday.

THE Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) last night called for the indefinite cancellation of all non-emergency surgery.

WOMEN who underwent an operation in which their pelvis was broken after childbirth are considering taking the Government to court because it has failed to fulfil promises it made to them over five months ago.