HEALTH service management have refused to publish a report into chronic capacity problems at Cork University Maternity Hospital.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney has been urged to ensure hospital beds are more frequently occupied, after it emerged up to 20,000 bed days could be lost in Cork hospitals this year.

DEMOLITION work is due to start next week on part of a former Cork city maternity hospital.

PLANS to build one of the country’s first co-located hospitals on a crowded medical complex in Cork are facing stiff opposition.

LIMERICK’S Mid-Western Maternity Hospital was last night named and shamed as the worst place in Ireland for patients’ meals.

CORK’S €75 million new maternity hospital will be officially opened tomorrow by Minister for Health Mary Harney.

WITHIN 24 hours of its opening, 15 babies had been born at the country’s newest maternity hospital.

Dozens of mothers and babies were today moved into the country’s newest maternity hospital after the resolution of an industrial dispute.

The Irish Nurses Organisation today dismissed suggestions that delays in opening the new Cork University Maternity Hospital were due to a demand for more money.

LIKE the expectant mother who fails to meet her due-date, the country’s newest maternity hospital failed to deliver on time.

TODAY has long been earmarked as a landmark day for maternity services in Cork.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) and Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) talked late into the night last night to try to find a resolution to the staffing row which threatens the opening of the new maternity hospital in Cork.

THE country’s biggest nursing union remains on a collision course with management at Cork’s new maternity hospital threatening to scupper its opening date of March 24.

HOPES of a breakthrough in the midwives row threatening the opening of a €75 million maternity hospital were dashed last night.

SENAN O’REILLY was the first of six babies born in Erinville and St Finbarr’s maternity hospitals in Cork on Christmas Day.

MIDWIVES at a private hospital have suspended proposed industrial action to facilitate talks.

A PRIVATE hospital attempted to reassure expectant mothers yesterday ahead of planned industrial action by midwives.

MANAGEMENT at the new €50 million Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) will await the outcome of an inquest in Dublin before deciding if they will allow women to give birth in their planned birthing pool.

COMPARING Cork’s main existing maternity hospital, the Erinville, to its successor, the Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH), is like comparing 1960s Ireland with the Celtic Tiger.

A UNIT of incorrectly labelled blood recalled from a maternity hospital was inadvertently sent to another hospital because of poor quality control at the Irish Blood Transfusion Service.

THE woman who abducted a baby boy at a Cork hospital was back in court yesterday after she fled from her residential treatment programme and ended up coming to the attention of gardaí in Cork city where she was causing a disturbance on the street.

THE preliminary report on the fire damage to St Finbarr’s maternity hospital in Cork is due today.

THERE will be no further mix-ups of new born babies, the chief executive of the country’s largest health board vowed yesterday.

NIAMH O'SHEA was expecting to deliver her third child around New Year's Day but her parcel of joy was delivered on Christmas Day instead.

THE security company which foiled the abduction of a baby from a maternity hospital is to create 200 new jobs in a nationwide expansion.

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.