Hospital staff left patients' bodies in packed wards

London: A 64-year-old hospital patient has spoken of her horror after the body of a woman was left in an adjacent bed for up to eight hours.

Sarah Stevenson said staff left the corpse on a packed ward from 1pm until after 8.30pm. Two other patients who died on the same day were also left for several hours behind thin curtains on the ward where Stevenson was being treated for pneumonia, she said.

The three bodies were finally removed in front of distressed families and young children during visiting hours.

Apology

Bosses at Heartlands Hospital, in Birmingham, had apologised. They said the wait was caused by delays in bringing specialist equipment to remove the bodies, but denied they remained for as long as eight hours.

Stevenson, a great-grandmother from Small Heath, Birmingham, was admitted to hospital on February 15 with suspected pneumonia. She was given a bed on a ward and was placed in a bay next to another woman. Two days later, at around 1.10pm, she noticed the woman had died. She told a nurse but says the body was not taken away until after 8.30pm. All that divided Stevenson and the patient was a thin curtain.

She said: "At about 1.10pm the woman in the bed opposite me, a lady in her late-50s or early-60s, died and I had to alert the nurse that she had passed away.

"Another one died at around 2pm and the third a while later. I was upset because I was so ill myself and to lie next to a dead body all day was my worst nightmare. I don't think they showed the patient any dignity in death."