[Doug]

It’s a dreadful thought for anyone hearing or reading about this and knowing that they might be going in and not coming out.

We always made sure that people where taken off the Ward at the first appropriate opportunity. Being a small unit we would pull other Nurses off the quieter wards if we didn’t have a porter on duty or when we where short staffed, which was nearly every night and this was 24 years ago.

Our Mortuary was outside of the main building and across a small car park so it would often require three or four people to remove a body. Usually one would go ahead and ensure that there was nobody around to compromise the girls with the trolley and to open the doors.

The fourth would guard the main exit of the hospital to ensure we could get back in if there was an incident. In the eight years I was there we had at least five separate incidents where we had been challenged, usually by drunks. Come hell or high water we never abandoned a body and we never left a deceased person on the ward longer than was necessary.

God forbid that matters should get any worse.