THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY ON 26/06/2011
Photo: Nurse Joel Reys Vallejo who was struck off for stealing and self injecting opiate-based medication intended for patients.
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
A DOZEN nurses – including a nun -have faced disciplinary proceedings for stealing and abusing hospital drugs, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Shocking details of nurses drunk on duty and shooting up medicine intended for patients are contained in the case files of fitness-topractise hearings taken by An Bord Altranais, the regulator for the nursing profession.
The case reports include many instances of disturbing and dangerous behaviour by registered nurses including the sexual abuse of a patient at the controversial Rostrevor Nursing Home in Rathgar. That case resulted in the home’s owner, Therese Lipsett, and two of her nurses being struck off the register last December.
But an MoS review of all recent fitness-topractise cases against nurses has revealed dozens of instances of other behaviour that recklessly put patients at risk.
Drug abuse, in particular, is a common theme in the disciplinary cases. Yet the majority of those caught and proven to be stealing and abusing drugs are simply officially admonished and have conditions attached to their nursing licences rather than being struck off.
This means they can continue to practise nursing, although all future employers will be informed of their past behaviour.
Of the 10 nurses found guilty of drug misuse in recent years, just three have been struck off.
Astonishingly, one of those struck off, in July 2010, appears to have been a religious nun with an opiate addiction, who used morphine intended for her own patients.
Other recent cases include nurse Wilson Jeofry Abel who, last summer, was found to have been self-administering fentanyl – a powerful synthetic opiate that is 100 times more potent than morphine – while on duty.
Similarly, nurse Ellen Teresa Cox was last summer found to have been stealing and self injecting ampoules of opiate-based painkiller Cyclimorph as well as forging hospital records to cover up the thefts.
And in June 2008, nurse Mary Carmel Quinn ingested methadone while on duty at an unnamed facility before driving home afterwards under the influence.
All of the above were rebuked and had conditions attached to their registration. Other nurses were struck off automatically, as they pleaded guilty to criminal theft, while others were found to have turned up for shifts drunk and incapable of performing their duties.
In fact, the range of offences proven against nurses is astonishing. Some forged signatures on reference forms while others tried to cover up deadly medical mistakes by forging hospital records.
Others, such as nurse Lata Chandubhai Timoney was found to have taken prescription pads from doctors in order to forge prescriptions for a range of morphine-based drugs that she then sought to obtain from pharmacies.
Her name was erased from the register in the summer of 2009. In one notable case – that of Allan Ray Ramos Bal – a nurse was found to have failed to attend to his duties during a two-month period because he was ‘playing computer games and/or using a mobile phone and ear piece and/or stretched out on chairs.” Cruelty towards patients is also a feature of the complaints upheld against nurses.
And as witnessed in the recent Rostrevor Nursing Home scandal, care facilities for the elderly do not escape the violent and disturbing behaviour of some nurses.
According to nursing board records, nurse Mary Anne Morris assaulted an elderly patient, hitting him in the face.
She then made up a false story that implicated another nurse to explain the marks on his body. She was struck off in July 2010.
And as far back as 2002 another nurse, Hanorah Theresa Butler, was alleged to have woken a hospital patient by pulling the hair on her legs and to have instructed a colleague to kick a patient on the shins to make her eat.
The fitness-to-practise committee also found that, among other things, she refused to allow a member of staff to hold the head of a patient being bathed out of the water when she had difficulty doing so herself; and she used ‘foul and abusive language’ to her elderly charges. Nurse Butler was struck off the register in 2009.
In yet another case nurse Kristina Dioso Villanueva changed the settings on a patient’s ventilator on July 26, 2008, without the permission of her superiors.
‘When you believed your patient had died, you failed to take any, or any appropriate action, either by informing a medical practitioner and/or your nursing colleagues or otherwise,’ the fitness-to-practise ruling reads.
Although Miss Villanueva was found to have acted ‘outside the scope’ of nursing practice rules, no sanctions were imposed and she is free to continue working as a nurse.
Maybe it was a blessing and God did it to save me
ONE of the more serious cases of drug abuse took place in an unnamed hospital in October 2007 when nurse Joel Reys Vallejo decided to steal a syringe of synthetic opiate fentanyl.
The biological effects of the drug are similar to heroin but stronger. Hiding from his colleagues, Mr Vallejo plunged the needle into his leg and emptied its contents into his bloodstream.
He then tried to change the labelling on the syringe and filled it with sterile water in a bid to conceal his theft. But he was seen and immediately reported.
He said this week that it was the only time it ever happened, meaning patients were not deprived of drugs because of his actions.
‘Somebody saw me switch those drugs and it was brought up to the high superiors and I admitted it right away,’ he told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Sitting in his Dublin 15 home, surrounded by pictures of his infant children, Mr Vallejo said he regretted his actions but believed being caught was a blessing in disguise.
‘Maybe it was a blessing. Maybe God did that to save me, to stop me doing anything more like that. God uses strange ways.
‘Maybe in his own time he will give me an answer.’ Married to a fellow nurse who still practises, Filipino Mr Vallejo says he was never a drug addict and simply acted out of frustration at a difficult time on his life.
‘I didn’t have any problems with drugs after that one incident,’ he said.
And he says he had never been involved with drugs or addiction in any way. ‘Not really. When I was in college, I tried to smoke joints. That’s all. ‘I was represented by one of the members of the INO. They suggested that I go to a psychologist. I went to see a psychiatrist in the Mater Hospital but they didn’t find anything. It was just a situational thing and that’s it. I was struck from the register and I continued to see the psychiatrist.’
Now at home minding his children, Mr Vallejo has turned to religion. ‘It was a tough time but I met this community, Couples for Christ,’ he said. ‘It’s a local community and in household meetings, we give thanks and praise to Christ and we raise our concerns. It’s like a small prayer meeting.
‘That’s where I learned to speak out. Before, I used to keep my problems to myself. It’s not a good idea keeping things to yourself and trying to deal with it yourself.’ He’s not sure if he can have his strike-off overturned but if so, he would like to someday return to nursing.
In the meantime, he continues to live with the shame of his actions and being barred from his chosen profession.
‘Even some of my closest friends don’t know I’ve been struck from the register,’ he said.
Junkie nun who stole patients’ drugs for herself
DRUG abuse is the most common reason that nurses find themselves before the fitness-to-practise tribunal of the Nursing Board.
But few would have expected a nun to give in to such temptation. Yet astonishingly the records of recent hearings indicate that a Sr. Mary Kate Murphy was found to have been stealing hospital medication for personal use between October 2008 and March 2009.
The Nursing Board has not revealed any further details about the identity of the hospital involved.
But Sr. Murphy was registered to practise as a general nurse, a public health nurse and a midwife.
Ruling to strike her off the register, the inquiry found that Sr Murphy falsified prescriptions to obtain drugs such as the highly addictive morphine-based painkiller Severdol.
Worse still, Sr Murphy was also found to have retained for personal use medication that she should have given to patients.
The inquiry found she had ‘presented to work while under the influence of opiate medication which had not been prescribed for [her]’.
Sr Murphy was also found to have provided ‘false information’ to her line manager ‘in respect of falsified prescriptions’.
Sr Murphy was struck off in July 2010.
So drunk that she could not even remember her colleagues’ names
CHRISTMAS 2007 is one that Mary O’Brien, a registered nurse, may well wish to forget – if she can remember it.
That’s because on the night of December 28 she stumbled into work too drunk to remember the names of her own colleagues.
The lapse of judgment led to a fitness to practice hearing and in December 2009 she was censored in relation to her professional misconduct and conditions were attached to her registration The hearing concluded that Miss O’Brien was ‘unsteady on her feet’ and ‘unable to recall patients’ names and/or the names of other staff members on duty.’ ‘You attended for night duty whilst under the influence of alcohol. You were unfit to work,’ the hearing notes read.
Despite her condition, Miss O’Brien tried to administer medication to patients. Some of it was found on the floor and in a patient’s lap. The inquiry found that Miss O’Brien could not account for missing medication.
When asked to leave the hospital, she was verbally and racially abusive to the night nursing officer and to a night porter.
CASE FOUR Monster left her patient on the floor IN 2004, nurse Mary Ann Carroll faced 11 allegations of verbal and physically abuse against residents in an unnamed nursing home.
Among other things, Miss Carroll was alleged to have thrown a soiled pad at a resident and to have been aggressively and physically abusive to patients and staff.
In once incident, Miss Carroll ignored and failed to help an ailing patient who fell to the floor in a corridor, walking past her repeatedly as she lay there.
She was also found to have told a care assistant not to attend to the patient as she lay in the corridor. Another finding stated that Miss Carroll ‘went to bed for several hours in circumstances where you were rostered for night duty’, that she ‘frog marched’ a resident along a corridor and that she threw a patient’s medicine into the bin.
She was also accused of acting in a aggressive and insensitive manner with a number of nursing home residents and of failing to record incidents in which patients fell.
All the allegations were found proven and Miss Carroll was struck off the register in 2007.
