Pensioner forced to sleep on hospital car park bench

Evelyn Beale, 61, from Lydney, Gloucestershire, was told there were no beds available at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and was asked to leave by staff.

But Miss Beale, who suffers from severe arthritis and osteoporosis, had no money and no way of getting back home at 2.45am.

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Despite having no shoes or socks, she was warned the police would be called if she did not leave the hospital's casualty department.

Struggling to walk and feeling exhausted, she was left with no choice but to bed down on a bench in the car park, and use her handbag as a pillow.

"I was frozen and terrified every time someone went by. But what could I do?," she said today.

"They just wanted to get rid of me. It was the one place you would think they would look after you if you were sick, but they couldn't care less."

Miss Beale had been driven to the hospital by ambulance in the early hours of April 28, after she complained of being in agonising pain.

But a doctor said there was little he could do to help relieve her symptoms and gave her some tablets.

She was told she could go home, but had no cash to get a taxi or family who could help her.

The pensioner asked if she could sleep in the waiting room, but a nurse told her she would have to leave.

"I pleaded with them, but they said no. I thought what shall I do? I couldn't walk properly, I was in so much pain.

"I was stumbling around. People thought I was drunk. I came across a bench and felt quite poorly. I thought 'I'm going to have to lie down'. It was so cold."

At 9am she went back into the hospital to ring a friend to get a lift home, but had no luck. She then walked into Gloucester, with just hospital slippers on her feet.

"I walked and walked. My feet were bleeding. I was confused.

"I had no food or drink, even at the hospital. They didn't even offer a glass of water for my tablets."

Finally two police officers spotted her wandering a mile from the hospital and took her home in a police van.

"I worked from the age of 13 and paid into the NHS and this is how I'm treated. It's appalling. I thought things would get better with this Government and they just get worse.

"I have nightmares. I wake up shouting and I'm so relieved when I realise I'm in my own bed."

She is now demanding a personal and public apology from the hospital after making an official complaint.

A spokeswoman for the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "We're sorry that Ms Beale is unhappy with her experience. She has made a formal complaint and we're investigating the issues she has raised."