HEARTLESS thieves have stolen a television set from the relatives room of the intensive care ward at Royal Bolton Hospital.

Consultant anaesthetist Dr John Aspbury was so enraged by the theft, he wrote to the BEN to nominate the thieves as 'Rats of the Week'.

"I hope the thieves feel guilty when they sit and watch it," he wrote.

The television, which was chained and bolted to the wall of the room and glued to the bracket it stood on, was bought with donations from patients' relatives.

Sister Emma Battle, who has worked on the ward for nine years, said: "The television was a great comfort to relatives who spend hours, days and weeks on the ward when their relatives are ill. It's invaluable to relatives because it provides a distraction. Whoever did this is really sick. Thieves prowling around an intensive care ward doesn't bear thinking about."

Staff suspect that two teenagers, who had been caught in the room at various times, may have stolen the set.

Unbelievably, the teenagers were spotted on one occasion trying to saw through the brackets with a hacksaw.

"We weren't really that surprised to find that it had gone because they were obviously determined to get their hands on it. But every time we approached them they ran off." To enter the relatives room visitors have to know the code for the digital lock.

Sister Battle said: "They somehow got to know what the pass numbers are or a relative has unwittingly let them in. And then they somehow dissolved the glue that attached the television to the bracket. They were determined to get it."

She said that throughout her career she had never known anything like this happening on the intensive care ward.

"Stealing items from a hospital is sick in itself, but taking a television from an intensive care ward, where people are so sick is really terrible."

The incident has been reported to the police, but they've admitted that there is little they can do.

"It has really sickened everyone on the ward," said Sister Battle. "We've nothing left in the budget to replace it ."

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