Mar Herraiz, 37, had gone 20 hours without sleep and was close to giving birth when, astonishingly, three members of the exam board for her nursing course turned up, insisting that she take the test or fail the course.

But the Spanish High Court has now ruled in Ms Herraiz’s favour. The Madrid health service must now allow her to take the exam again.

The judge found that her treatment amounted to discrimination and that the health service had behaved with a “major lack of sensitivity” that “confounds the most basic common sense”, El Español reported.