Dying patients were bundled into emergency ambulances and moved in their final hours after managers shut down a hospice without warning.
Nurses on duty at the Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice, in Leeds, were left in tears after being told to ring relatives of end-of-life patients with the distressing news that their loved ones were being immediately transferred.
One nurse told the Mail she was disgusted by hospice management, who she claims sat in their offices eating an Indian takeaway while nurses scrambled to hand over their vulnerable patients to paramedics.
In total, seven terminally ill residents were moved in emergency ambulances to alternative hospices across Yorkshire between 5pm and midnight on a Friday evening in August last year. Another patient was discharged home.
One woman died within five hours of being moved, while another two patients had passed away within 48 hours. At least two families lodged formal complaints about their treatment in the aftermath.
