The two most senior medical personnel at Peamount Hospital have secured interim High Court orders restraining their removal from their positions.
Ms Justice Laffoy granted the interim injunctions to Mr Michael Cush SC, for Professor Luke Clancy and Dr Paul Kelly, respectively medical director and senior hospital medical officer of Peamount.
The orders were made returnable to Monday next.
The judge said she was making the orders because Professor Clancy has 20 patients under his care in the hospital at the moment.
In Dr Kelly's case, she was making the order in light of a letter of March 18th last which indicated that if Dr Kelly was not prepared to take up a new post which post, the judge noted,
Dr Kelly had not been formally offered, he was to be treated as having resigned.
Peamount Hospital is the national specialist referral centre for tuberculosis.
Last July a five year strategic plan was published for the hospital which stated that it wished to refocus its services to provide a range of rehabilitation and continuing care services.
The plan rejected an option for Peamount to be a "chest hospital", which would have involved developing links between the 60-bed respiratory unit at Peamount and St James' Hospital in Dublin.