Hospital security officers found drugs hidden in the heels of a woman's boots as she was on her way in to visit a prison inmate under treatment, a court heard yesterday.

Police Inspector Mario Tonna told Magistrate Lawrence Quintano how, on November 4, 2006, officers at St Luke's Hospital's St Michael's Ward carried out a routine search on a woman visiting a patient at the ward where prison inmates are treated.

The officers closely inspected the woman's boots and found a packet of heroin inside one of her heels. In the other heel were pieces of foil.

The woman was taken in for questioning and told the police that she had smuggled heroin into the ward on several occasions.

She explained that the man she went to visit had told her where to obtain drugs. She would then buy heroin and take it to him in hospital. The name of the woman is not being published on the recommendation of the magistrate who feared for her safety.

Lawyer Ian Farrugia and Philip Galea Farrugia appeared for the woman.