The report, which is expected to be given to Dr Reilly before the end of November, is focussed on three main areas, namely: *Which services will be moved from smaller hospitals Navan, Dundalk, Portlaoise, Loughlinstown, Mallow, Bantry, Ennis, Nenagh, St…
Novus Medica
Medical news service from Penhire
Monthly Archives: September 2011
Minister to meet doctors over unit
MENTAL Health Minister Kathleen Lynch is to meet consultant psychiatrists from the south-east to discuss the HSE’s planned closure of a 49-bed acute unit. The meeting takes place on Wednesday when consultants concerned about the plans to close St Michael’s…
CUH orders halt to overtime pay for doctors
A circular sent to consultants at Cork University Hospital (CUH), seen by the Irish Examiner, has ordered an immediate halt to the payment of unrostered overtime to non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs). The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said stopping unrostered overtime…
Court threat over doctors’ hours
[From Indo>>>] The European Commission yesterday threatened to takeIreland to the European Court of Justice unless it took action to reduce the hours worked by junior doctors. It says junior doctors are often forced to work over 100 hours in a week, sometimes without adequate…
Revealed: huge scale of hospital sick leave
The worst hit is Ennis General Hospital in Co Clare, where absenteeism levels are running at 9.43pc, leaving it struggling to cope with an average of 22 missing staff from its 238 workforce daily. (Independent) >>>
Delays by consultants block €85m due to HSE
A CONSULTANT at South Tipperary General Hospital has not yet signed claims that would release more than €1 million owed to the Health Service Executive by private insurers. More than €85 million due from health insurance companies is outstanding because…
Major investment in VHI required after court ruling
The case, which was brought against Ireland by the EU Commission, centred on exemptions enjoyed by the VHI from certain EU rules on non-life insurance. In essence the case was over the fact the VHI is not subject to regulation…
HSE devises strategy if cash runs out
Assistant national director for finance Liam Minihan has confirmed he is a member of a HSE group drafting a national cash management strategy “as a contingency, just in case, in order to prioritise payments in December”. “Of course, salaries and wages…
GPs earn over €750k from card schemes
Dr Catherine Coleman, who runs the Berkley Clinic at Phibsboro, Dublin, was paid €767,108 for seeing medical and GP card patients and in practice supports in 2009 — the latest full-year data available. In Donegal, Dr Anthony Delap’s practice was…
Doctor still working at hospital after fatal mistake
A DOCTOR is still working at a hospital where he misdiagnosed a mother of three who later died from complications following emergency brain surgery. The revelation came as the Irish Independent also learned that Cork University Hospital (CUH) has not…
Doctors rake in extra cash for supplying hospital scanners
HIGHLY paid doctors are earning extra income of more than €100,000 a year by hiring out private scanning mach-ines to public hospitals, the Irish Independent has learned. The consultant radiologists in Cork and Galway, who are on staff salaries averaging…
Anger as HSE closes 65 hospital beds
Kathleen Lynch, Minister for State at the Department of Health, said the closures — in mainly short-stay beds — will be at Camillus Hospital, Co Limerick (15); St Ita’s Hospital, Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, (17); Community Hospital of the Assumption, Thurles,…
Bowel cancer blow as public screening plan is postponed
A LONG-awaited national bowel cancer screening programme, which was due to start next January, has been postponed, the Irish Independent has learned. Aimed at cutting the disease’s annual death toll of 950 people, the programme has been in preparation for…
Dying cancer patients should not be given ‘futile’ drugs
After a year-long investigation, a panel of leading academics said that the cost of treating cancer to western societies is spiralling out of control, as the ageing population means that increasing numbers of people are growing tumours. Doctors are said…
The myth persists about the ‘snip’
The Irish Family Planning Association carried out the first vasectomy in Ireland in 1973 at a time when other forms of contraception were banned, offering couples a permanent method of avoiding unwanted pregnancies. Since then, the IFPA has completed more…
Male sexual issues take many forms
THE British Journal of Urology International has just published a report on erectile dysfunction (ED) which found that men often under-reported sexual issues, such as orgasmic and ejaculatory dysfunction, due to social stigmas. While medication such as Viagra has been…
Making babies against the odds
Experts believe that within the next two years, the global total of babies conceived through IVF will reach five million. Yet for people seeking fertility treatment, the range of possibilities – IVF, sperm injection, egg donation, fertility preservation, embryo transfer…
STI clinic in St James’s
‘WE’VE SEEN it all and we’ve heard it all, we’re not in for any surprises,” says Dr Fiona Lyons of her work at the sexually transmitted infections clinic at St James’s Hospital. As a consultant in genitourinary medicine at the…
Finding the causes of infertility
Many couples turn to assisted reproductive technology (ART), such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), for help, but Galway GP and fertility specialist Dr Phil Boyle believes that these interventions do not do enough to address the underlying causes of infertility.…
Resistance rises to antibiotics in E.coli infections
A STUDY AT Tallaght Hospital, published recently in the British Journal of Urology International, which included more than 42,000 samples, found that antimicrobial resistance in E.coli urinary tract infections has risen in recent years. E.coli is the most common bacterium…
‘Get Gutsy’ campaign launched to raise awareness of bowel disease
Speaking at the campaign launch, Prof Hugh Mulcahy, consultant gastroenterologist at St Vincent’s Hospital, said: “IBD is very prevalent for a disease which strikes so young and which is so debilitating. However, treatments are constantly improving, so if someone is…
Almost 2,300 HSE staff paid over €100,000
The figure, which was set out by Minister for Health James Reilly in an answer to a parliamentary question, includes medical consultants working in HSE hospitals. However, the figure does not take account of high-earning medical consultants who are employed…
Two-year wait for cataract patients
PUBLIC PATIENTS are waiting up to two years for cataract operations, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon has said. At the launch of the Cost of Sight Loss report yesterday, Prof Colm O’Brien said cataract patients were waiting up to 12 months to be…
Complaints against doctor upheld
The Medical Council’s fitness to practise committee was told that Dr Babatunde Olugbenga Bantale failed to properly examine the woman when she presented at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee in June last year. The Medical Council’s committee agreed with the…
Head of hospital unit to be paid €90,000 for six-month contract
THE HEAD of the new agency established by the Government to produce plans for tackling waiting lists and problems in hospital emergency departments is to be paid €90,000 for his six-month contract. The contract agreed between the Department of Health…
Junior doctors from abroad have yet to sit exams
SOME 85 overseas junior doctors, brought in to fill vacancies in the public hospital system, are still waiting to sit exams to allow them register with the Medical Council, the Health Service Executive has said. Most of the doctors are…
Doctors risk ‘professional suicide’ with drug alerts
DOCTORS and academics risk “professional suicide” if they reveal the adverse side-effects of anti-depressants and other psychiatric medicines, a leading academic psychiatrist has claimed. Irish-born professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University in Wales, Prof David Healy, also hit out at any…
Dr John Doherty on wives of sick men
[Letter to the Indo >>>] Kevin Myers (Irish Independent, September 21) is disturbed that women make far more visits to the doctor than men do. However, men don’t need professional expertise to be told what’s wrong with them. They have wives…
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