The feasibility of restoring some services controversially removed from Monaghan General Hospital in recent years is now being looked at in an effort to take pressure off Cavan General Hospital.
This is understood to have been discussed during a meeting between members of the medical board of Cavan Hospital and the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, in Dublin yesterday.
Since Monaghan Hospital was taken "off call", many emergencies from its catchment area have been redirected to Cavan Hospital without any significant extra resources having been put in place there to deal with the extra workload.
The delegation from the hospital, led by its medical board chairman, consultant physician Dr Paul Smith, is understood to have expressed concern about bed capacity at the hospital and its funding allocation.
It had sought the meeting with Mr Martin before the events of earlier this week, when a nine-year-old girl from Cootehill died three weeks after an appendix operation at Cavan Hospital. The cause of the girl's death has not been established and post-mortem results are awaited.
Last night's meeting lasted for over an hour and afterwards a spokeswoman for the Minister said it was a constructive one.
"The medical board put a number of proposals to us that we will be following up with the North Eastern Health Board," she said. "They reiterated, and we concurred, that a very broad range of high quality services are being provided at Cavan Hospital and that that should not be lost sight of in the midst of the current difficulties."