Nurse censured for borrowing €200 from patient

A nurse has been found guilty of professional misconduct by the nursing board, An Bord Altranais, after she struck up a conversation about her financial problems with a patient and ended up borrowing €200 from her.

Carina Girona Padua DeGuzman was a staff nurse in an undisclosed Irish hospital when, in Feb 2010, she engaged in a conversation with a female patient about her “personal circumstances”.

This conversation took place when the woman was in hospital but Ms Padua DeGuzman then acquired her former patient’s address and visited her at her home later that month.

According to the findings of the fitness-to-practise committee of An Bord Altranais, the nurse visited the patient at home for a second time a month later.

Once again, the question of finances arose and the committee found that the nurse accepted a loan from her former patient.

Under section 41 (1) of the Nurses Act, 1985, Ms DeGuzman was censured in relation to her professional conduct.

Another nurse was struck off the register of nurses and midwives this month after being found to have been under the influence of alcohol and drugs while working.

The committee found the nurse, Mary O’Brien, also known as Maura Cremer, unfit to work as a nurse for reason of physical or mental disability.

It ruled that she was incapable of performing her duties in Dec 2009 and had been confused and disorientated while at work, becoming verbally abusive to another staff nurse.

Ms O’Brien also asked this same nurse not to report her behaviour on the night.

The committee also said Ms O’Brien had failed to take adequate and proper care of her patients on this occasion.

Among the criticisms were that she provided an incorrect dosage of insulin to a patient and failed to give a nasogastric feed to another patient, as well as not giving medication to two other patients.

The board also found that Ms O’Brien had breached an undertaking she had given it in Feb 2008 — that she would not practise nursing while she was the subject of a fitness-to-practise hearing — by seeking employment with a nursing agency.