A new and better way of detecting cervical cancer recommended by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) will mean most women will be screened less often.

The two most common diseases of the teeth and gums are caries (decay) and periodontal disease (gum disease).

An agency supporting victims of sexual violence in the Irish health service has claimed it is being ignored by the HSE and the Department of Health.

Reading Alison O’Connor’s column (Opinion, June 6) prompts me to write in praise of, and agreement with, her excellent article on the Minister of Health, Dr James Reilly and for her fair and impartial assessment of him and his ministry.

Mental Health Reform has criticised a major acute hospital for leaving patients at risk of suicide in its busy and overcrowded emergency department for hours on end.

The Dail's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is to call in the board of St. Vincent's Hospital after claims of fraud by Senator John Crown.

The rate of suicide in one coroner’s area has doubled in the past five years.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “A nation will be judged by how it treats its weakest members”.

Trade union Impact has warned government plans to introduce universal health insurance could become an expensive failure.

Seventy patients are waiting more than a year for a live kidney donor transplant, a situation described as “agonising mental torture” by one such patient.

A Government minister has voiced his opposition to a super sewerage plant proposed for his constituency.

CROSS-BORDER co-operation on international trade issues, rural development and animal welfare were all discussed at the 16th North South Ministerial Council Agriculture meeting in the NSMC joint secretariat offices, Armagh.

I WONDERED how soon it would be before Fergus Finlay (Opinion, Sept 13) would be rushing to the defence of his slightly beleaguered leader Eamon Gilmore, seeing as no other journalist has seen fit to do so.

IN response to Michael O’Shea of the Irish Heart Foundation regarding cigarette smuggling into Ireland (Letters, April 23), the Minister for Finance is perfectly correct when he states it is the result of high taxation on cigarettes.

The swine flu epidemic has spread deeper into the United States, Europe and Latin America, experts said today.

Zimbabwe has declared a national emergency over its cholera epidemic and the collapse of its health system as a result of its economic crisis.

The North's Minister of Health is to be urged by a coroner to take action to ensure prescription drug addicts cannot get multiple scripts by registering with more than one GP.

A SATIRICAL comedy called The Mouse that Roared, starring Peter Sellars, was produced many years ago, but in the past week the Government has seen a normally well-mannered and decorous demographic roaring its rage at its mean-spirited, almost contemptuous, attitude to the first generation born into a newly-liberated Free State.

South Africa’s finance minister resigned along with most leading Cabinet members today in the wake of president Thabo Mbeki’s departure.

A young Cavan man accused of murdering his father told gardaí: “I always had it in my head growing up to kill somebody”, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

Minister for Health Mary Harney has said that it time for the Progressive Democrats party to elect a new leader.

IRISH women have joined the one million women in Europe who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to demand urgent action on the poor services available for the incurable disease.

A passenger train travelling towards a railway station in northern Egypt today collided with a second train, killing at least 58 people and injuring 143 – in the latest accident on Egypt’s dilapidated third-class railway service.

Minister of Health Mary Harney has declared 2,000 extra consultants are needed to meet demand for treatment for prostate cancer in our hospitals.

Disgraced obstetrician Michael Neary was not an evil man or a bad doctor despite needlessly removing scores of women’s wombs at Co Louth hospital, Tánaiste Mary Harney said tonight.

Young people have called for a Government ban on drinks advertising, the National Youth Federation said today.

IN his letter to the Minister for Health published in the Irish Examiner (November 21), the remaining oncologist in the south and south-west, Dr Seamus O’Reilly, berated conditions for cancer patients in the region.

The proportion of overweight or fat men is higher in some European countries than it is in the US, experts said in a major analysis of Europeans’ expanding waistlines.

NEWLY-APPOINTED Health Minister Mary Harney stated the obvious when she said Ireland does not have the health service it should, and could, have for the money it is spending on the sector.

EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak interrupted a nationally televised speech to parliament yesterday for more than 30 minutes because of what was described as a "health crisis" before resuming the address amid cheers from lawmakers.

CADGING a few cigarettes from Dublin Simon Community volunteers on the soup run will soon be a thing of the past.

I WISH to highlight for your readers the apparent lack of concern which the Government is currently displaying with regard to the needs of the intellectually disabled people.

The Norwegian government today proposed tough anti-tobacco legislation that it claimed could make it the first country in the world to totally ban smoking in all bars and restaurants.

A GROUP of parents whose dead children’s organs were removed without their consent may take court action if Health Minister Michaél Martin fails to give full powers to an inquiry into the scandal.

The Irish Nurses Organisation is turning up the heat on the Minister of Health.

Senior Counsel, Paul Gardiner has been appointed by the Minister of Health to investigate the role of US pharmaceutical companies in the infection of Irish haemophiliacs.

German sausage makers have been making the country's most popular food with beef but labeling it as something else.