Medical disciplinary tribunal suspends nurse who had sexual relationship with patient

The nurse and patient met when she was assigned to him in a hospital clinic.

A nurse had a sexual relationship with a vulnerable schizophrenic patient and then lied to him, leading him to believe he was the father of two of her children.

But she later moved in with him and had another baby, who was the patient’s child.

The nurse, identified only as Ms S in a decision by the New Zealand Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, has been found to have engaged in sexual misconduct with the patient.

The tribunal also found S intentionally deceived the patient by misinforming him that he was the father of her two children.

She has now been suspended from practising for 18 months and ordered to pay $23,259 in costs, according to the decision, released today.

The name of the patient has been suppressed and he has been referred to in the decision as Mr T. The nurse’s name has also been suppressed as it could otherwise lead to identifying the patient.

S was an enrolled nurse. Enrolled nurses generally practise under the supervision of a registered nurse or nurse practitioner.

S failed to set and maintain appropriate professional boundaries while she was nursing T and later entered into an inappropriate relationship with him, the tribunal found.

Their sexual relationship began less than a month after he was discharged from the clinic where she was working.

T has a long-standing form of schizophrenia which gives him an “inappropriately cheerful” disposition.

He cannot grasp difficult concepts, concentrate, or understand how to see things from two sides.

His personal relationships tend to be superficial and based around his needs - shelter, food, sometimes alcohol, and money.

S was assigned to his care while he was an in-patient in a hospital clinic. At the same time, she was going through a relationship breakup.

One day T noticed she was upset and asked if she was all right, and a friendship developed from there.

On his discharge from hospital, S was asked to transport T to a rehabilitation unit.

When they got there, T asked S for her phone number, which she gave him. Their friendship then evolved into an intimate relationship.

When the nurse later went on to have her children, she told T he was the father.

She said that at the time she “panicked and said the wrong thing without thinking”.

The woman had been in an abusive relationship and gave the tribunal details of her partner’s physical violence and denigrating comments. He had put a GPS device on her car and had defecated on her bra.

She said she wanted T to be the children’s father because his family was kind and caring, which was in contrast to what she was used to.

S did not tell T the truth – that he was not the father – until later.

Shortly after that, S and T started living together.

A year later, T was removed from the nurse’s home by police because of concerns about his mental health and readmitted to hospital as an in-patient.

S subsequently discovered that she was pregnant again, this time to T.

She told the tribunal she was not aware of Nursing Council courses on ethics or professional boundaries.

“During her nursing study she was taught that as soon as a patient is discharged, they are no longer part of one’s life, unless they come back in,” the tribunal decision said.

“There was no discussion about forming relationships with former patients.”

The tribunal said it was concerned by the lack of supervision in place for S at an early point in her career.

“Workplace shortages have contributed to a very poor grounding for her, but more than that, she was often the allocated nurse for [Mr T] and was not working under the supervision of a registered nurse.”

S told the tribunal she loved nursing and hoped to return to it one day.

The tribunal suspended her for 18 months and imposed conditions if she wanted to return to the profession.

These will require her to undertake a course on ethics and professional boundaries, provide a written reflection to the Nursing Council and to inform future employers of the tribunal decision.

She will also have to work under supervision for a year and will be unable to work in the fields of mental health or addiction for three years.

T has access to his child every Saturday but has “little or no capacity” to understand what being a father means, the decision said.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.