Hospital consultants unhappy with health service deterioration

Hospital consultants are warning that there will be major unrest at their annual conference this weekend.

They say the continuing deterioration in the health services is not being addressed and that Ireland is now facing a crisis over hospital waiting lists.

Finbar Fitzpatrick, secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, said there has been a massive increase in the numbers of patients seeking treatment.

He said that almost a thousand per week more people were coming in, and that there is too much debate about what should be done and too little action.