Assault costs nurse registration

A former Napier nurse has had her professional registration cancelled after assaulting a mental patient, five years after she stole money from a paralysed patient.

The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal said that in the latest incident Aleisa Ruth Bishop grabbed the woman patient by the arm in an effort to remove her from a couch and causing her "unreasonable distress" by threatening to lock her up in a secluded room.

The tribunal said that there was no clinical basis or rationale for the action which occurred on June 10 2007.

Bishop did not appear to answer the charge and the tribunal said it appeared she was now working in Australia.

The patient said in evidence that Bishop dragged her off the couch, bent her thumb back, and tried to get her to take pills without a drink of water.

She said Bishop was "lazing in front of the TV with a magazine all night".

Her account was corroborated by another nurse, who said Bishop became irritated when the patient resisted removal from the couch.

Bishop said in patient notes that the patient became "verbally abusive and loud later in shift... laughing loudly on couch".

The tribunal said Bishop, an experienced mental health nurse, was angered by the "inappropriate" laughter but should have walked away, or de-escalated the incident.

She had previously been disciplined in 2002 for stealing $102 from a tetraplegic patient, but her name was not released at the time.

- NZPA