Up to 40 staff at Sligo General Hospital have been told they are to be let go as part of the Health Service Executive's (HSE) drive to reduce its deficit.
The staff set to lose their jobs include four locum consultants, 30 agency nurses on temporary contracts and a number of housekeeping staff.
Dr Tim O'Hanrahan, a consultant at the hospital, said management had confirmed the staff were to have their contracts terminated in the very near future.
He said people were shocked that sensitive services being provided by the consultants who were be let go "seemed to be axed almost overnight without much thought".
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has written to the chief executive of the HSE Prof Brendan Drumm expressing grave concern at the plan and asking that it be rescinded immediately.
Donal Duffy of the IHCA said the public was now seeing "the hypocrisy" of statements made recently by Prof Drumm and Minister for Health Mary Harney to the effect that patients would not be affected by the HSE's total ban on recruitment and its cost-cutting drive to make up for massive overspending in the first part of the year.
It was facing a €245 million deficit at the end of July.
The consultants being let go specialise in orthopaedics, obstetrics and gynaecology, breast disease and ear, nose and throat problems.
The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has sought an urgent meeting with the hospital's management team and has advised members not to co-operate with any moves to redeploy them.
Maura Hickey, the local INO industrial relations officer, said the measures would result in bed closures, curtailment of services and ultimately patients would suffer.
The Irish Medical Organisation has also written to Prof Drumm calling for the decision to be reversed. Its president Dr Paula Gilvarry said: "this is completely unacceptable, and will undoubtedly cause outpatient appointments and clinics to be cancelled and longer waiting lists for patients".
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr James Reilly said frontline staff were being cut, while "the bloated bureaucracy within the health service" remained untouched.
"Cutbacks have been the order of the day since Fianna Fáil and the PDs were returned to Government with hospitals in Ennis, south Tipperary, the midlands and now Sligo particularly hard hit," he said.
In a statement last night HSE West said the measures were designed to bring the hospital's approved nursing staff numbers and funding position back into line.