“Hospital chiefs who told nurses to point Muslim patients’ beds towards Mecca five-times-a-day last night climbed down. They said they would now only do it for the ‘terminally ill’. Nurses had been breaking off from health care duties to perform the ritual at Dewsbury and District Hospital in West Yorks….
“There were claims last night that the bed shifting policy almost cost one 80-year-old her life. Staff at Dewsbury Hospital were so busy gran Mavis Fox was able to slip out unnoticed and walk over three miles home. She was rushed back after falling and gashing her head. Overworked nurses had failed to spot that she was missing. Mavis’s family are now fuming that she was able to walk out.
“One angry relative said: ‘They said the nurse was busy and they didn’t have enough staff. My gran could have died that day. It was really cold and no one even knew that she’d gone. If they can make moving beds for Muslims a priority why can’t they make it a priority to look after other patients?'”
There has been no “climb down” by the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. There never was a policy of moving Muslim patients’ beds five times a day, nor were there any plans to implement such a policy. Read the original press release by the Trust and their correction of the Daily Star‘s lies here.