Nurse took patient’s methadone for own use

A NURSE who took methadone from a patient for her own use has been censured for professional misconduct by An Bord Altranais.

Mary Carmel Quinn had conditions attached to the retention of her name on the Nursing Register after a fitness to practice committee found a number of allegations concerning her use of the heroin substitute drug to be proven.

Another nurse, Maria Lacap, was struck off after the committee determined that she had procured and consumed prescription drugs, including diazepam, which had not been prescribed for her, in July 2008.

An Bord Altranais also struck off Gehan Massoud from practising as a nurse after she was convicted of larceny.

The Egyptian nurse and her husband, Dr Emad Massoud, were found guilty of defrauding almost €750,000 from insurance companies over a false breast cancer claim. Ms Massoud, 47, a mother-of-four from Rathoath, Co Meath, was given a suspended three-year sentence, while her husband was jailed for four years.

Psychiatric nurse Frank Dempsey was admonished over his professional conduct after he was found to have taken benzodiazepines on one or more occasions for his own personal use between 2000 and 2007 from the hospital where worked.