The Health Service Executive has said the situation in Accident & Emergency units will see a definite improvement within weeks and that planned protests by nurses will not help.
The Director of the HSE's National Hospitals Office, Pat McLoughlin, said real progress was being made on the Government's ten-point A&E plan and that contracts for extra beds and support services were being signed.
Meanwhile, management at Cork University Hospital say they are ‘reasonably confident’ that their new Accident & Emergency department will finally open next Monday.
The unit, which cost €15 million, should have opened last year but did not because of a lack of funding for new staff.
The Irish Nurses Organisation is adamant the department will not open unless it is happy with the arrangements for support and specialist staff. Both sides met this afternoon to try to resolve outstanding issues.
INO organises protests
The INO says there is no end in sight to the A&E crisis.
Announcing a series of A&E lunchtime protests by nurses, the organisation's General Secretary, Liam Doran, said nurses wanted a definite time frame for the implementation of Tánaiste Mary Harney's ten-point A&E plan.
Mr Doran said extra acute hospital beds and elderly care beds were needed and the A&E crisis was not confined to the Dublin region.
The INO said it first highlighted A&E overcrowding ten years ago and the situation was now worse than ever.
The INO campaign begins with half-hour lunchtime protests at 1pm tomorrow outside the Mater Hospital in Dublin, Cork University Hospital and Roscommon General Hospital.
The protests will be repeated each Tuesday and Thursday during the month of April at selected hospitals nationwide.
