The heating was turned off at night in a nursing home in Co Kerry to save costs, nurses claimed today.

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

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) says it will be raising a number of issues with Minister for Health Mary Harney later today regarding the latest draft consultant contract.

A SECOND round of renewed efforts between medics and health bosses to reach an agreement on new consultants’ contracts was under way last night.

THE Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has called on the Government to guarantee to meet any funding shortfall created as a consequence of removing private patients from public hospitals.

REACHING agreement on new contracts for hospital consultants by the Government’s deadline of next Tuesday will be impossible, a doctor’s group warned yesterday.

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.

HOSPITAL consultants have called on Health Minister Mary Harney to quit what they termed the phoney war of words over health service reforms.

FOR nine years public health doctors have been looking for a structured out-of-hours service to protect the health of the Irish people.