Tag Archives: consultants

“Explosive” revelations about the work practices of consultants in the Mid-West’s acute hospitals have prompted calls for an independent public inquiry into the running of theatre facilities. A report prepared by healthcare consultants, Meridian Productivity Limited, in 2013 revealed late starts by consultants in all hospitals in the UL Hospitals’ Group was a regular feature that was going “unchallenged” in the majority of cases. It outlined there was no clear definition or means of reporting utilisation of theatres,  excessive theatre overruns in Dooradoyle and last minute communication of theatre list content. It stated there was “poor theatre start and end punctuality” and a transfer of only a “very small amount of procedures” from UHL to Ennis and Nenagh hospitals, which is contrary to commitments given when 24-hour emergency services were removed from those hospitals in April 2009. UL Hospitals’ Group has welcomed the recommendations made in the report, which it said has helped to improve efficiencies in theatres and insists …

Clare County Council’s opposition to the proposed Lough Derg water abstraction project may be drowned by the huge waves of support from vested interests in the east of the country, local councillors have claimed. Councillors have warned that the lack of professional, technical and engineering support for their objections makes it harder to fight the huge volume of submissions supporting the planned abstraction of over 330 million litres of water daily from Lough Derg, to supply the greater Dublin region. Local councillors expressed trenchant opposition to Irish Water’s plans to take water from the lake at a special briefing session for the Killaloe Municipal District. Councillor Pat Hayes lamented the fact there is “no one to fight for our side” and noted the former North Tipperary Council still had not made a submission after entering into an agreement with the previous promoters of this project, Dublin City Council, to get financial assistance for an independent assessment of the plans. Claiming …