SIR – I have just read the article about the loss of Steve Spreadbury s wedding ring and gold cross and chain after emergency admission to the QE2 Hospital. I am sure this is not the first case where a patient s jewellery will have disappeared . Surely

SIR - I have just read the article about the loss of Steve Spreadbury's wedding ring and gold cross and chain after emergency admission to the QE2 Hospital.

I am sure this is not the first case where a patient's jewellery will have 'disappeared'.

Surely, the answer to this dilemma is: if a patient is admitted, as an emergency, without a relative with them, it should be the hospital's duty to remove any valuables from them and store them in a safe keeping place.

Otherwise, if a relative was in attendance at an emergency admission, it is the hospital's duty to ask them to remove any valuables and take them home with them for safekeeping.

Should a patient's relatives not choose to take a patient's valuables away with them, then the hospital can not be held responsible.

However, this article did remind me of the two occasions when my stepfather was admitted to the QE2 and they 'lost' his false teeth.

On these two occasions it cost more than �300 a time to replace them!

Naturally, my mother (now deceased) was somewhat angry at having to incur this expense more than once. And this was some years ago.

However, this did teach me a lesson, should I ever need to be admitted to hospital, I would never take anything remotely valuable or removable into hospital with me.

But what a sorry state of affairs this is.

Mary Coleman,

Via email