Sick leave is costing Irish companies £11 million a week, the chief executive of the VHI, Mr Aidan Walsh, has told the IPD conference in Galway. The cost of the average stay in hospital is now £2,100 compared with £1,880 in 1988. Because of the economic boom, more people were taking out private health insurance, he said. VHI membership was increasing at the rate of 1,000 a week and the advent of competition had had no visible impact on the increase the VHl is experiencing. Page 6