Nurse who stole morphine ‘protected’

A NURSE who blew the whistle on a colleague she believed was stealing morphine from seriously ill patients claims the wrongdoer was protected by “higher-ups” and is still practising.

Kay Garvey, a member of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) executive council, said she was part of a group of nurses working at an acute unit in the Midlands who were victimised after complaining about a colleague they believed was taking the drugs herself rather than administering them to patients.

“We discovered the nurse was substituting other drugs for morphine and taking the morphine herself.”

Ms Garvey, who said her complaint ended her promotion prospects and affected her health, claimed the nurse at the centre of the controversy was protected for years by people at the highest level, including a Government minister.

“People got involved at all stages in the process, there was even ministerial support for her wrongdoing. It dragged on for six or seven years. Eventually, I had to threaten to go to the press before action was taken. Our concern was for the patients,” Ms Garvey said.

She said the nurse had been the subject of an An Bord Altranais Fitness to Practise inquiry, but despite restrictions being placed on her work she is practising today. Ms Garvey said the stress of trying to make their voices heard had taken its toll on her health and that of a colleague who died last month.

Ms Garvey was commenting in the context of a motion at the INO annual conference in Co Cavan, calling on the Government to provide legal protection for whistleblowers and calling on the Health Service Executive (HSE) to introduce a whistleblower’s policy for health workers.

Raymond Bradley said it was hard to believe the Government had not enacted legislation protecting whistleblowers in the wake of the Dr Michael Neary case, when two midwives were vilified by hospital colleagues for exposing the consultant obstetrician’s extraordinarily high rate of hysterectomies.

A nurse at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin claimed staff had been effectively gagged by a new media policy at the hospital requiring those who wished to speak to the media to obtain advance permission from the chief executive.

A motion calling on the HSE not to obstruct, threaten or otherwise sanction the employee who speaks out was carried unanimously.

However a spokesperson for Beaumont Hospital denied staff were gagged. He said they were asked as a matter of courtesy to inform the CEO’s office before speaking out.