Hospital Defends Plans to Turn Patients' Beds to Face Mecca -- 12/05/2007

Hospital Defends Plans to Turn Patients' Beds to Face Mecca -- 12/05/2007: "A hospital in northern England is playing down media reports saying that nurses have been ordered to stop normal duties five times a day to turn Muslim patients' beds so that they face Mecca. British tabloid newspapers reported Tuesday that at a hospital in West Yorkshire county, 'overworked' nurses in the taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS) were struggling to cope with the additional duties required for Muslim patients. Apart from moving the beds, the nurses also have to provide bathing water for pre-prayer ablutions, the reports said. The new duties were causing 'havoc,' said the Daily Express, while the Daily Star said they were 'creating turmoil' and quoted a doctor at the hospital as saying it was a case of 'political correctness gone mad.'"