SELF-STYLED mobile clinics offering a range of on-the-spot health checks come without sterilising equipment and pose a health hazard to the unsuspecting public, doctors have warned.

PARENTS investing heavily in a medical career for their child should be wary of private grind schools offering “PreMed” courses that do not equate to the actual first year of a medical degree.

DOCTORS want cancer “centres of excellence” rebranded as “specialist centres” to allay patient fears that treatment anywhere other than the so-called centres of excellence may be substandard.

DOCTORS have called for an extra 1,200 acute hospital beds to help resolve serious capacity problems in the system.

THE vast majority of hospitals in Ireland are unable to offer suitable facilities to allow patients to die with proper dignity, according to a new report.

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.

REPEAT Leaving Certificate students are hogging places in medicine, dentistry, veterinary and pharmacy, and are more than twice as likely to opt for these disciplines than other courses.

MONEY generated from increased taxation should be ring-fenced to meet the growing medical needs of Ireland’s ageing population, according to a leading geriatric consultant.

Evelyn Ring

THE Government is expected to appoint the new secretary general of the Department of Health next Tuesday, following the cancellation of today’s Cabinet meeting in Cork.

THE Government has been warned it could face hefty fines from the EU if it fails to implement the controversial recommendations of the Hanly report to reform the health services.