THE HSE last night defended the decision to slash its budget for ferrying patients to hospitals for lifesaving treatment, saying that some people could make their own way to clinics.

A new interim executive board of the HSE has been appointed.

THE Health Service Executive’s reconfiguration programme is all about patient safety and is not a process for closing down rural hospitals, the man charged with the task has insisted.

MENTAL Health Minister John Moloney has questioned whether there is a media “conspiracy” behind the lack of coverage granted to a major campaign aimed at de-stigmatising mental illness.

CONTRACTS were signed yesterday for of a €35 million critical care unit at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.

PATIENTS staying in outdated facilities will be living in new, community-based settings in three years’ time after the Government promised to close down 15 Victorian-era institutions.

THE new Children’s Hospital of Ireland will be more than twice the size of Croke Park, it emerged yesterday.

HSE PLANS to replace an outdated child intensive care unit described in a report as “a potential risk to patient safety” could be scrapped due to budget cutbacks.