Budget reduction leads to HSE Irl. West potential loss of 683 staff
The HSE West region is facing a budget reduction of €104.8 million this year, according to its 2012 service plan, just published. The region says it expects 683 staff will quit its service as the retirement ‘grace’ period finishes at the end of the month.
John Hennessy above, HSE West Director of Operations, said the scale of reductions this year would impact increasingly on frontline services.
The service plan states that three hospitals in particular – Galway, Limerick and Letterkenny, face major financial challenges in 2012 due to the carry forward of significant deficits from last year.
It said further efficiencies will be pursued through the reorganisation of rostering, reduction in overtime and agency spend, improving of skill mix and other measures such as improved procurement and income collection to limit the impact on frontline services.
The HSE West says the financial constraints in 2012 and the continuing public sector recruitment moratorium will challenge its ability to recruit certain categories of staff –
It ways ‘significant flexibility’ in relation to reconfiguration and redeployment will be needed in order to maintain frontline services.
The report added that the continuing junior doctor recruitment difficulties in many of hospitals will pose challenges in the delivery of acute services.
40 year old Man dies in another Galway road crash near Tuam
A motorist has died and another man has been admitted to hospital following a road crash in Co Galway.
A 40-year-old man died in a road crash in the Galway village of Belclare near Tuam, Co Galway. The man died after the car he was driving hit a wall and trees at Belclare at 11.30pm last night.
A 46-year-man travelling in the car was seriously injured in the crash.
He is being treated for his injuries at University College Hospital Galway.
Gardaí have appealed for witnesses to contact them in Tuam on 093 70840.
Elsewhere, gardaí are appealing for information on a road crash at New Ross in Co Wexford on Thursday.
A 35-year-old woman died last night from injuries she received when the car she was driving collided with a truck at Shambough.
Health Protection Surveillance Centre warns elderly people to get the flu jab as cases soar
ALERT: Rates double in a week
A SURGE in flu cases led to renewed calls today Saturday for people to get the vaccination jab. Dr Joan O’Donnell, a specialist in public health medicine, said it is “not too late” to get vaccinated.
People with chronic bronchitis, diabetes, heart conditions, and weakened immune systems should ensure they get the flu vaccine. Influenza can lead to complications such as pneumonia and even death.
The number of people falling ill with flu has doubled in the past week.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre warned today older people and people with health problems should get the flu jab as soon as possible.
The seasonal flu virus has become active and the current cycle will last for six to eight weeks. It can take two weeks for a vaccination to offer full protection so it is worthwhile for vulnerable people to get the jab.
Ireland has escaped lightly this winter compared with recent years’ flu levels.
However, rates of flu-like illness have risen from 15.7 per 100,000 to 26.2 per 100,000 this month and are now above “threshold levels”.
Immune: This means that flu is “actively circulating” the community.
“People who are at risk of the complications of flu need to get vaccinated now. The vaccine is available free of charge from GPs for all people in at-risk groups, and from pharmacists for everyone aged 65 and over,” said Dr O’Donnell.
“An administration charge may apply to people who don’t hold medical cards or GP visit cards,” she added.
The most recent surveillance report showed three people have died from flu this winter.
Although this is the official number, many more will have died due to complications.
Dr O’Donnell said the seasonal flu vaccine is a safe vaccine. It is a separate vaccine from the swine flu vaccine, which resulted in complications for a small percentage of people.
Ireland’s EU membership ‘is vital’ for overseas investment on-going
IRELAND’S involvement in the European Union is “a must & vital” for attracting investment from overseas, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland said.
Speaking in Dublin yesterday, Peter O’Neill said the country’s full membership of the EU was of “strategic interest” for US firms seeking to invest here.
“Ireland is an attractive location for US investment for a host of reasons and when this is underpinned by our close relationship with Europe it benefits both Ireland and Europe as a whole,” he said.
Ireland accounts for one-sixth of foreign direct investment made by US companies into Europe. Large technology multinationals such as Intel, HP, Google and IBM have all located here, while major health sciences firms including Pfizer, Medtronic and Abbott have also set up operations.
“This investment has proven critical to the very survival of our country in the current crisis,” he said.
“Over 1,000 new jobs were announced by US companies in Ireland since the beginning of the year. These jobs might not have been created here if Ireland was outside the European Union.”
However, he said it was important that confidence in Europe was restored following the crisis that had exposed weaknesses in the regulatory system.
“For Ireland to remain as attractive a location, international confidence in the European Union needs to be maintained and that can only occur by instigating structural changes at EU level,” he said.
A recent report from the American Chamber of Commerce said investment from the US in Ireland has grown five fold in the past 10 years, and is now worth $190 billion – more than the US has invested in the four BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations combined. It accounts for about a quarter of Ireland’s gross domestic product.
First Anti-gang law conviction in Ireland as two Galway men are nabbed
Two GalwaGalway brothers Michael (29) and Eddie O’Loughlin (26) became the first two people to be charged with running a criminal organisation when they appeared at a special court sitting last year the men have pleaded guilty to membership of a criminal organisation, marking what is believed to be the the first conviction of its kind under new anti-gang legislation.
The men were originally charged with establishing a criminal organisation but entered a guilty plea to the lesser charge of membership yesterday.
They face a maximum of 15 years in prison under the 2009 Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act.
Michael O’Loughlin (31) of Rahylin Glebe, Ballybane, and Edward O’Loughlin (28) of Rockfield Park, Rahoon, have both pleaded guilty to participating in the activities of a criminal organisation in the Galway area between February 10th and June 1st, 2010.
A trial commenced last week after the men pleaded not guilty to directing a criminal organisation but it collapsed on day seven due to the illness of a juror.
These charges were then withdrawn by the State and both men were arraigned on the new charge of participating in the activities of a criminal organisation. The trial was originally due to last six months and would have involved the viewing of hundreds of hours of CCTV footage.
Judge Martin Nolan remanded both men in custody for a sentence hearing on April 30th which is due to take two hours. During the trial the jury was told that conversations recorded using audio devices placed inside cars would be used to prove that the two men were guilty of running a criminal gang.
Opening the trial for the prosecution at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Dominic McGinn SC said that the jury would hear recordings of conversations of the two men which would link them to the organisation of criminal activities.
He said that in February 2010 gardaí began recording conversations in the Toyota Avensis used by Edward O’Loughlin and on May 14th, 2010 they began listening into a car registered to the partner of Michael O’Loughlin.
Mr McGinn said that the gardaí would give evidence of routine traffic stops and other surveillance carried out by them which they say confirms that the voices heard on the recordings are that of the two accused.
The deadly bird flu studies results to be published but will stay a secret for now says WHO
Two studies showing how scientists mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic will be published only after experts fully assess the risks.
Bird flu research has to carried out in a highly control environment
Two studies showing how scientists mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic will be published only after experts fully assess the risks, the World Health Organisation has said.
Experts have delayed a decision on whether research into the bird flu virus should be released amid concerns that the information could be used by bio-terrorists.
Speaking after a high-level meeting of flu experts and U.S. security officials in Geneva, a WHO official said a deal had been reached in principle to keep details of the controversial work secret until deeper risk analysis could be carried out.
“There is a preference from a public health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies.
However there are significant public concerns surrounding this research that should first be addressed,” said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director-general for health security and environment.
The WHO called the meeting to break a deadlock between scientists who have studied the mutations needed to make H5N1 bird flu transmit between mammals, and the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which wanted the work censored before it was published in scientific journals.
Biosecurity experts fear mutated forms of the virus that research teams in The Netherlands and the United States independently created could escape or fall into the wrong hands and be used to spark a pandemic worse than the 1918-19 outbreak of Spanish flu that killed up to 40 million people.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said that because of these fears, “there must be a much fuller discussion of risk and benefits of research in this area and risks of virus itself.”
But a scientist close to the NSABB who spoke to Reuters immediately after the decision said the board was deeply “frustrated” by the situation.
The only NSABB member attending the meeting was infectious disease expert Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University and he “got the hell beat out of him,” the source said.
“It was a closed meeting dominated by flu people who have a vested interest in continuing this kind of work,” he added.
The WHO said experts at the meeting included lead researchers of the two studies, scientific journals interested in publishing the research, funders of the research, countries who provided the viruses, bioethicists and directors from several WHO-linked laboratories specialising in influenza.
HIGH FATALITY RATE: The H5N1 virus, first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, is entrenched among poultry in many countries, mainly in Asia, but so far remains in a form that is hard for humans to catch.
It is known to have infected nearly 600 people worldwide since 2003, killing half of them, a far higher death rate than the H1N1 swine flu which caused a flu pandemic in 2009/2010.
Last year, two teams of scientists – one led by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Center and another led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin – said they had found that just a handful of mutations would allow H5N1 to spread like ordinary flu between mammals, and remain as deadly as it is now.
This type of research is seen as vital for scientists working to develop vaccines, diagnostic tests and anti-viral drugs that could be deployed in the event of an H5N1 pandemic.
In December, the NSABB asked two leading scientific journals, Nature and Science, to withhold details of the research for fear it could be used by bioterrorists.
They said a potentially deadlier form of bird flu poses one of the gravest known threats to the human population and justified the unprecedented call to censor the research.
The WHO voiced concerns, and flu researchers from around the world declared a 60-day moratorium on January 20 on “any research involving highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses” that produce easily contagious forms.
Dr. Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of the journal Science, said it is now likely the paper submitted to Science and to the journal Nature will be published in full.
Alberts said it is still not clear how the scientists in Geneva plan to handle biosafety issues mentioned by the group, and it is still not clear when the papers will be published, but it will likely not be years.
“I hope this does not cause the world governments and WHO to stop working on this problem,” Alberts said of any potential fallout from the decision at a news briefing at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver.
When asked how the journal is safeguarding copies of the as-yet-unpublished paper, he said it is in a locked electronic file and is password protected. And the magazine has asked reviewers of the paper to destroy their review copies.
Fouchier, who took part in the two-day meeting at the WHO which ended on Friday, said the consensus of experts and officials there was “that in the interest of public health, the full paper should be published” at some future date.
“This was based on the high public health impact of this work and the need to share the details of the studies with a very big community in the interest of science, surveillance and public health on the whole,” he told reporters.
In its current form, people can contract H5N1 only through close contact with ducks, chickens or other birds that carry it, and not from infected individuals.
But H5N1 can acquire mutations that allow it to live in the upper respiratory tract rather than the lower, and the Dutch and U.S. researchers found a way to make it travel via airborne droplets between infected ferrets. Flu viruses are thought to behave similarly in the animals and in people.
Asked about the potential bioterrorism risks of his and the U.S. team’s work, Fouchier said “it was the view of the entire group” at the meeting that the risks that this particular virus or flu viruses in general could be used as bioterrorism agents “would be very, very slim”.
“The risks are not nil, but they are very, very small.”
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