UK: Nurses told to move beds to face Mecca for Muslim Patients

and provide running water for WUDU - five times a day. "In a bid to promote cultural understanding... of course."

Now, nurses are being encouraged to spend valuable time turning around the beds of Muslim patients up to five times a day - so they can face Mecca.

Hospital staff in West Yorkshire must make sure Muslim patients' beds face in the direction of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia

In a bid to promote cultural understanding, they are also expected to provide patients with running water so they can wash before prayer.

And then, of course, they are required to turn the beds back around to return the wards to normality. The measures are being pursued by Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust to ensure Muslim patients have a "more comfortable stay in hospital".

Hundreds of staff have attended tax-payer-funded workshops with Muslim GPs and ethnic-minority support groups on how best to help patients.

During these meetings, nurses have been told that if a patient asks for water to bathe in, or for their bed to be turned to face Mecca, then this should be considered.

If the measure is deemed "practically possible" and does not impinge on other patients, then it should be carried out.

And if it is not practical, nurses are encouraged to find them a bed that faces Mecca permanently.

But an experienced nurse at Dewsbury and District Hospital in Yorkshire where the ideas are being tested, has blasted the scheme. She said: "It would be easier to create Muslim-only wards with every bed facing Mecca than deal with this.

"We have a huge Muslim population in Dewsbury and if we are having to turn dozens of beds to face Mecca five times a day, plus provide running water before and after prayers, it is bound to impact on the essential medical service we are supposed to be providing.

"Although the beds are designed to be moved, the bays are not really suitable for having loads of beds moving around to face a different direction and, despite our best efforts, it does cause disruption for non-Muslim patients."

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