A PENSIONER discharged himself from hospital 48 hours after major surgery - because he was sick of old ladies nattering on his ward.

Ronnie Westwood climbed out of his hospital bed and walked out of South Tyneside District Hospital two days after a bowel cancer operation.

The 67-year-old removed a catheter, a drip and a hairline tube from his back, before dressing, packing his over-night bag and strolling out.

He then waited outside the hospital for a bus to take him home to John Street, Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside.

After realising he was missing, desperate hospital staff called the police, who went to his home and found him sitting by the fire with a cup of black coffee.

Mr Westwood's family are furious he could just walk out so soon after a major operation, and are demanding answers over how it could be allowed to happen.

But the widowed father-of-four, who lives alone, said: "It was a daft thing to do, but the ward was full of elderly women rabbiting on, and I just had to get out of there."

Mr Westwood, a retired construction worker, said the police picked him up from home and drove him back to hospital.

South Tyneside Primary Care Trust's executive director of nursing and clinical governance Dave Shilton said: "It can be difficult to prevent something like this, because we have to strike the right balance between providing a safe and secure environment and allowing patients to have a degree of freedom.

"Fortunately the gentleman doesn't appear to have suffered any ill effects as far as we are aware."