A psychiatric nurse who stole prescription forms, inhalers and sleeping tablets from the care centre where he worked has been found guilty of professional misconduct.
An inquiry by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland found six allegations proven relating to the unauthorised taking of prescription forms and medicines by the nurse from Clonmethan Lodge in Oldtown, Co Dublin on May 3rd, 2017.
The centre is a residential facility for people with an intellectual disability and associated mental health problems which is operated by St Joseph’s Intellectual Disability Service.
The NMBI’s fitness-to-practise committee also ruled that the nurse, who cannot be named, had breached the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for nurses.
The committee’s chairperson, Anne Marie Duffy, said its findings were based on admissions made by the nurse.
He admitted taking approximately 20 prescription forms and various forms of sleeping tablets without authorisation from Clonmethan Lodge as well as presenting a forged prescription at Hickey’s Pharmacy on Henry Street, Dublin on May 3rd, 2017.
The nurse told the inquiry at an earlier sitting in May that his actions were linked to an addiction to hypnotic drugs which he developed after being violently assaulted by a resident of the Clonmethan Lodge in November 2015.
The inquiry heard that he had pleaded guilty at a sitting of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in February 2020 to a charge of forgery of a medical prescription as well as four counts of theft for which he received a nine-month suspended prison sentence.
The nurse claimed he had stopped taking hypnotic drugs in 2017 and wished to continue working in the profession.
“I miss working as a nurse. I miss it a lot,” he told the committee.
The inquiry heard he resigned from his job at Clonmethan Lodged in February 2020 before the conclusion of a disciplinary process involving him.
However, the FTP committee rejected the claim by the NMBI that the nurse’s history of hypnotic use disorder might impair his ability to practise nursing.
Ms Duffy said the committee had decided that the nurse did not have a relevant medical disability.
She said the committee had considered it appropriate to consider the amount of time which had passed since the nurse had suffered an active addiction and his subsequent management of any addiction.
Ms Duffy said six years had passed since the nurse last consumed hypnotic medication which she noted appeared to be inextricably linked to a serious workplace incident in 2015 from which he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.
She also acknowledged that an expert witness was satisfied he had recovered from PTSD and had subsequently been placed in various stressful situations including during the Covid-19 pandemic with vulnerable adults with an addiction, without suffering any relapse.
The man, who has worked as a nurse since 1991, told the inquiry in May that he felt he had left his family and others down as a result of his addiction but expressed a strong desire to continue working in the profession.
Ms Duffy said a report on the case, which will include recommended sanctions, will be presented to the NMBI in due course.
