More than 40 new Clinical Directors (CDs) have now been appointed across the health service, following the closure of nominations last Friday.

The Minister with responsibility for Mental Health has made a public commitment to cease the inappropriate practice of admitting children and adolescents to adult psychiatric facilities by the end of next year.

The IMO has called for the full implementation of both Reach Out: The National Strategy for Action on Suicide Prevention and the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Sub-Committee on the High Level of Suicide in Irish Society.

A comprehensive review of how the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) is being flouted across the EU is expected to be adopted by the European Commission next month.

The Chief Executive of Charter Medical Group, Mr Dave Shanahan, has said the government could use assets now acquired through Anglo Irish Bank to house hospitals and postpone capital developments under the NDP.

The HSE is considering a pilot project in the South East to provide training to patients or their carers to allow them to carry out their own dialysis treatment.

Two Irish doctors at the Centre for Ageing, Neuroscience and the Humanities, at the Trinity Centre for Health Sciences have stressed that a major drive to improve health equity across the globe should not discount ageism when addressing the social determinants of healthcare.

‘Draconian’ EU legislation on food supplements was the subject of an Irish petition to the EU Petitions Committee last week.

Dear Editor, About fifteen years back, I as a trainee in the Irish psychiatric system wrote a letter to Irish Medical Times about the need for a separate college of psychiatry.

Some 12 per cent of Irish GPs indicated that they had received a request for anabolic steroids from a coach or an athlete without medical indications, a DCU survey, reported in the Irish Medical Journal, has found.