More beds are to be provided at Letterkenny and Sligo general hospitals this year to reduce pressures on their emergency departments.
In Letterkenny, patients awaiting admission are being moved into day wards at night to take them out of the corridors.
Yesterday's North Western Health Board meeting decided to provide 50 more beds in Letterkenny and 30 in Sligo from November. Staffing and equipping the beds will cost £2.5 million and £1.7 million respectively annually.
Letterkenny has seen a 56 per cent increase in emergency admissions since 1991, a health board spokeswoman said. The department, designed to cater for 25 patients, was seeing 70 patients a day.
Letterkenny will gain extra space for the beds through the relocation of its mental health unit, with many of that unit's patients moving to community settings. Sligo has less room and administration staff will move to temporary accommodation.
The Western Health Board is appointing a food safety adviser for University College Hospital Galway, following the closure of its kitchens late last month when cockroaches were found. The design for a new kitchen has been approved in principle.
Hospitals with full emergency departments can ask nearby hospitals to let them divert ambulances to their casualty departments for a time. But with bed shortages hitting all acute hospitals, the option of diverting patients is becoming less viable. The weekend before last, according to the Irish Nurses' Organisation, Naas General Hospital could only get James Connolly Memorial and Tallaght to agree to its ambulances being rerouted to them for one hour each.
The Coombe Women's Hospital is now providing information on a wide range of women's health topics at its website, http://www.coombe.ie
Subjects covered include ante-natal and neonatal care, miscarriage, gynaecology, labour and delivery and family planning. It has a Questions & Answers page which addresses questions most frequently asked by pregnant mothers. It also has very useful links to other sites, like the Miscarriage Association of Ireland which is at http://www.coombe.ie/mai/ index.html
hospitalwatch@irish-times.ie
Hospital Watch and Checkup on the Web can be found at http://www.ireland.com/special/hospital