Search Results for 'acute services'

Despite political and public opinion believing that the €7 million share of cuts to be foisted on Portiuncula hospital by the end of the year would “effectively close” the hospital, “the HSE can categorically state that there are no plans to close Portiuncula Hospital”.

Leading hospital consultants are urging the public to “stand up and support” Merlin Park Hospital amid fears that most of the facility will be closed down by the HSE in the next few weeks as part of cost cutting measures to help the authority balance its books.

“Outrageous” is how the chairperson of the HSE West’s regional health forum has described the fact that a 94-year-old Connemara widow and great grandmother of 34 children had to spend two nights on a trolley at UHG’s A&E department.

A new direct GP referral system means family doctors may now bypass A&E when referring patients to University Hospital Galway.

This week the country has been rocked by how much more than originally estimated it is actually going to cost the taxpayer to bail out Anglo Irish Bank. The National Asset Management Agency has started taking over toxic loans for half their original value. Quinn Insurance is under financial investigation and the company have warned that 5,500 Irish jobs are being threatened by the appointment of administrators, and the numbers on the live register crept up again in March after a slight fall in February. On a brighter note, public sector management and unions have reached an agreement in relation to public sector pay cuts with no further cuts promised until after 2014 provided certain cost-saving measures are met. Actually, it’s not so bright after all because teaching unions, and more than likely a few others, look set to reject the deal. Imagine the mess the country would be in if private sector workers had the same mechanisms to reject pay cuts which were thrust upon them. They took it on the chin and realised they were lucky to have a job when friends and colleagues were being made redundant.

Public confidence for any fundamental changes to the delivery of our health services will not be allayed if we continue to employ a two-tier healthcare system where the care you can access depends on ability to pay rather than on medical need.

Some 95 per cent of people on waiting lists for public nursing home beds are already accommodated in private nursing homes.

Fianna Fail TD Bobby Aylward, has raised reports about the possible downgrading of St Luke’s Hospital at the Oireachtas Health Committee.