Patient bruised by blunt hospital answerphone message

A major investigation has been launched after hospital staff aimed at tirade of abuse at a teenage patient - and inadvertently recorded it onto her answermachine.

Sharon Roberts, 19, was shocked when a routine message from The James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, recorded staff making unfriendly comments about her.

Women from the Genito Urinary Medicine clinic can be heard discussing her as a "typical druggie or alkie" because of her small frame, and commenting on the state of her teeth.



The hospital staff go on to sneer at the fact she has a Kurdish boyfriend, Bashdir Mawlwd - cruelly saying "who else is going to have her?"

Ms Roberts, from Stockton, received the answerphone message after she had missed an appointment at the clinic. But unbeknown to any of the staff there, the caller did not hang up the phone correctly, so the conversation that followed was recorded on her answerphone.

Simon Pleydell, chief executive of the South Tees NHS Hospitals Trust, said: "We would like to apologise unreservedly to Miss Roberts for the distress that this has caused. Everyone has a right to dignity, respect and confidentiality, and what has happened is totally unacceptable. The trust has launched a major internal investigation and we will keep Miss Roberts informed of its progress."

You can hear the answerphone message here.