A CATERING hostess at Royal Liverpool Hospital has been left “devastated” after she was sacked for drinking a carton of orange juice.

Cathy Walsh, had worked for ISS Facility Services at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital for six and a half years before she was dismissed last month for the alleged theft of a patient’s drink.

Cathy, 52, who has type two diabetes, said she took the drink because she was feeling light-headed – and has proof that she was unwell.

But, despite providing a letter confirming a doctor’s appointment and the antibiotics she was prescribed for a water infection, she lost an appeal against the decision last week.

She said: “I’d felt OK in the morning, had gone into work and was taking the breakfast trolley round but as I got towards the end of the first room I felt a bit funny.

“Suddenly I went all light headed and dizzy.

“We have these little cartons of orange juice with the breakfast so I just grabbed one of those and drank it to stop myself passing out.”

Cathy was spotted by one of the hospital’s trust members, who later reported her for theft.

Cathy, from Everton, Merseyside said: “When she saw me I explained to her I wasn’t feeling well.

“I carried on working, but I still felt a bit shaky, and later that day I went to an appointment at the Women’s hospital and they told me I had a bad water infection.

“I’m not sure what it was, it could have been the water infection, my diabetes, or a combination of the two.”