The Health Service Executive (HSE) has decided to proceed with contracting out its legal services in a bid to slash its multi-million euro legal bill.

Dr Garrett FitzGerald reflects on the similarities between the present crisis in public finances and the drastic health cuts of the 1980s.

Dr Mick Molloy says that Ireland is facing a crisis in its finances and everyone (without exception) must be prepared to suffer some cutbacks in their income and lifestyle {openx:269} It is only a short time now until ‘Budgement Day’, a new word I know but I think the concept will be known to those who have followed the Terminator

It’s almost December.

Re: Self-evident when it suits! Dear Editor, Cathal Ó’Súilliobháin (‘Enjoy cocaine responsibly’; IMT, 13th November, 2009) refutes the statement (probably correctly) that ‘all illegal drugs are very dangerous’ (on the basis of the ‘overwhelming weight of scientific evidence’), and along with it the statement that ‘there are some facts that are self-evident’ (again, probably correctly).

Dear Editor, My father always held that the permanent government made all the decisions and the elected inexperienced government mostly implemented them.

Dear Editor, I was very disturbed to see an article by Dr Garrett FitzGerald in Irish Medical Times (13/11/09).

The RCPI’s Faculty of Paediatrics has strongly backed swine flu vaccination for all children over six months of age and for people in household contact with children aged less than six months.

Dr Dermot McCaffery writes that angina care has focused mainly on the symptoms of the condition, since symptoms are the patient’s main complaint {openx:269} Stable angina is a different beast to its brother, unstable angina, or its sister, myocardial infarction! Any older GP will recall patients whom he has been seeing for over 10 years with stable angina.

Dear Editor, Minister Mary Harney is suggesting a 50 cent charge per item on a prescription for Medical Card patients and has also suggested, in her role as a doctor presumably, that ten items per prescription are both excessive and unnecessary.