Membership of the group which will decide which hospitals will lose and gain services when the next phase of the controversial Hanly report is rolled out across the State was announced yesterday.
The team will include eight members of the original group which devised the Hanly blueprint for the Mid West and East Coast Area Health Boards, including its chairman, the businessman Mr David Hanly.
However it also includes 13 new members, including for the first time a representative of the public interest and a senior adviser on spatial planning from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The appointee to represent the public interest is the former Fianna Fáil TD and junior minister Mr Chris Flood.
Hanly's proposals for the mid-west and east coast areas have met with widespread opposition because they involve replacing accident and emergency units at smaller hospitals in Ennis, Nenagh and Loughlinstown with minor injury units which will not remain open overnight.
It is likely the new group will come up with similar plans for other regions as the order given them has been to prepare a plan for "the reorganisation of acute hospital services, taking account of the recommendations of the National Task Force on Medical Staffing (the Hanly report) including spatial, demographic and geographic factors".
Those appointed to the group who have had no involvement in drawing up the first Hanly report include Mr Niall Cussen, senior adviser on spatial panning, Department of the Environment and Local Government; Dr Joe Ennis, retired consultant radiologist; Dr Fergal Hickey, consultant in emergency medicine, Sligo General Hospital; Dr Tony Holohan, deputy chief medical officer, Department of Health and Children; Mr John Kelly, consultant surgeon, South Infirmary, Cork; Dr Geoff King, chief executive, Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council; Mr Pat McLoughlin, chief executive officer, South Eastern Health Board; Mr Tony McNamara, general manager, Cork University Hospital Group; Dr Maire Milner, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Louth/Meath Hospital Group; Ms Orla O'Brien, director of nursing, Tullamore General Hospital; Ms Ann Marie O'Grady, chief physiotherapist, Beaumont Hospital; and Dr Eamon Tierney, consultant anaesthetist, Wexford General Hospital.
Other members selected from the original Hanly taskforce team include Dr Jim Kiely, Mr Paul Barron, Dr Richard Brennan, Dr Mary Hynes, Dr Peter Kelly, Prof Gerry Loftus and Dr Cillian Twomey.