Chelmsley Wood grandmother in hospital bed has purse snatched

Nov 5 2009 by William Oliphant, Birmingham Mail

A WIDOWED granny had her purse and cash stolen as she lay semi-concious in a Birmingham hospital bed.

Evalyn Upton fell victim to a thief after she was admitted to the serious infections ward at Heartlands Hospital suffering from pneumonia.

Tearful Mrs Upton, aged 59, said today: “I’m devastated.”

Police are investigating and the hospital has apologised to Mrs Upton, from Chelmsley Wood.

She went into hospital on Sunday night and said that before she was admitted to the ward nurses logged her belongings, which included £40 in cash and credit cards.

She woke in the morning to find they had been stolen.

Speaking from her hospital bed, she said: “I needed the money because I had to pay it into the bank because otherwise I was going to get bank charges.

“Now I don’t know what I’m going to do. I live on benefits and I don’t have a lot of money.”

She added: “They should do something about it. They should put CCTV in there. They say they can’t because of patient confidentiality, but I can’t believe that in this day and age they can’t put it into a hospital.”

She said that a nurse had come over to apologise for the loss of her money but could not explain how it had been taken.