In a shocking incident of “institutional racism”, nurses at a hospital in the UK tied a Sikh patient’s beard with plastic gloves, left him in his own urine and gave him food which he could not eat, according to a report in The Independent.

The male patient complained about the discrimination in a note on his deathbed, but no action was taken against the nurses, according to a dossier made available to the British online newspaper by a whistleblower from Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Multiple counts of alleged racism against nursing staff and patients were mentioned in the report.

NMC, the UK’s nursing regulator, has launched an investigation into The Independent’s report following a claim by a senior NMC official that the regulator has failed to address “institutional racism” for 15 years.