Lobby group sceptical about reorganisation

A lobby group which brought thousands of protesters onto the streets last winter to object to any downgrade of hospitals in the South-East reacted with scepticism to yesterday’s announcements on hospital groupings.

James Reilly, the health minister, wrote to TDs in Waterford to assure them that services such as invasive cardiology, trauma, and oncology would remain at Waterford Regional Hospital, which is to be linked with Cork University Hospital and, according to Fine Gael, will become a “major teaching hospital” because of new academic posts.

It will be renamed Waterford University Teaching Hospital.