Hospital Medicine

PSYCHOLOGIST Dr Frank Dolphin has been appointed chairman of the Children’s University Hospital, Temple Street.

The HSE will shortly launch a major new initiative to cut levels of delayed patient discharges from hospitals which will require major changes in the way hospitals operate.

The HSE has set a target of reducing MRSA rates by six per cent in 2009.

Following its recommendation that Ennis hospital should be significantly downgraded because of safety concerns, HIQA has urged that reviews be carried out of similarly configured hospitals.

Synchrony Properties Ltd has sought planning permission from Dublin City Council (DCC) to develop the long-awaited 196-bed co-located hospital at St James’s Hospital in Dublin.

Prof Jan Smith has been appointed Associate Medical Director at Beacon Hospital, Dublin and will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the medical staff, practices, protocols and physicians at the hospital.

ELECTIVE services at Cavan and Monaghan general hospitals were curtailed for almost two weeks over Easter and the restrictions will apply to roughly a further six weeks this year at each hospital.

A major drive has been launched to reduce inappropriate admissions to hospitals, starting with the north east (NE) — where new figures reveal the number of patients who should never have been admitted is 65 per cent higher than in the rest of the country.

Following its recommendation that Ennis hospital should be significantly downgraded because of safety concerns, HIQA has urged that reviews be carried out of similarly configured hospitals.

An urgent national capital plan is needed to rebuild the seven emergency departments that were deemed ‘unfit for purpose’ three years ago by the ED Task Force – and are still deemed unfit, according to President of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine.