THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has bowed to public pressure and extended the contract for a third consultant surgeon post at a north Cork hospital.

CONSULTANTS at a Cork hospital have sought an urgent meeting with both the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) over plans to cut weekend emergency surgery services.

A SENIOR doctor has warned of “catastrophic” effects after his hospital’s budget was slashed under a scheme to reward efficient hospitals.

MORE than 8,500 people are waiting to see specialists, according to waiting list figures for one of the country’s largest hospitals.

FEARS the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department at Mallow General Hospital could be downgraded or closed have been allayed with news that a dedicated casualty officer is to be appointed there.

AFTER a three-year absence, helicopters will be able to land near the country’s only level-one trauma hospital, it was confirmed yesterday.

AN organisation yesterday claimed that an A&E department in Co Cork is set to close as part of a centralisation of services to larger urban centres, a move first mooted in the controversial Hanly Report.

THE Government has been accused of “starving Mallow General Hospital of adequate funding”, according to volunteers helping to support the facility financially.

A 24-bed trauma ward in Cork University Hospital (CUH) was closed to admissions after patients were struck down with the Winter Vomiting Bug, it emerged tonight.

Fisheries ministers disagreed today on compromise proposals that seek to save cod from near extinction in EU waters without driving thousands of fishermen into bankruptcy.

A former heroin addict today claimed that he implicated a man on trial for firearms offences as part of a "deal" to get out of the garda station and avoid being charged.

European Union governments will today face calls for radical cuts in cod catches and the scrapping of hundreds of boats in response to dire warnings over the state of the continent’s fish reserves.

A man who was charged with the double murder of two young men whose bodies were dumped in the Grand Canal has told the Central Criminal Court the charges were dropped without explanation last Monday.

A 36-year-old woman was remanded in custody tonight after being charged in connection with the attempted abduction of a newborn baby in Cork.