UK nurses tied Sikh patient's beard with gloves, left him in his own urine, laughed at him: Report

The nurses accused of racism in the Sikh patient's case are currently working without restriction. (Representational image: Unsplash)

A team of nurses in the UK have been accused of racial discrimination after they allegedly tied a Sikh patient's beard with gloves, offered him food they knew he wouldn't eat due to religious beliefs, and left him in his own urine, a note left by the patient discovered by the family after his death revealed.

Details from the note were published in The Independent as part of a dossier leaked to it from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the UK's nursing regulator, which outlines multiple counts of alleged racism against nursing staff and patients.

The council has launched an investigation into the newspaper's revelations.

"Nurses accused of tying a Sikh patient's beard with plastic gloves, leaving him in his own urine, and offering him food he couldn't eat for religious reasons were allowed to carry on working despite the man complaining about discrimination in a note on his deathbed," the report said.

The patient's case was initially closed by the NMC’s screening team even after the discovery of the note following his death. Written in Punjabi, it claimed the nurses had laughed at him, kept him hungry by only offering food that they knew he couldn’t eat, and not responded to his call bell, causing him to wet himself and fall in his own urine.

The patient’s family found his turban on the floor, out of his reach, and his beard tied up with rubber gloves, The Independent reported without adding any further details of the man or the hospital.

A senior NMC whistleblower has urged NMC to address an alleged racial bias in how it treats conduct cases against Black and ethnic minority nurses and patients amid claims of "alarming" racism within the organisation, which was first raised in 2008, the report said.