KEY POINTS:
A nurse struck off the register over a relationship with a violent patient in a secure psychiatric unit is fighting in the High Court to keep her name suppressed.
The woman, known as Ms L, last month had her nursing registration cancelled and was ordered by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal to pay $5000 in costs.
After weighing up public interest and transparency issues the tribunal decided to revoke an interim order for name suppression for Ms L, with the lapse date being April 24, but that has been appealed.
The tribunal found Ms L, who worked at the Mason Centre in Auckland, risked public safety in her dealings with a man who was committed to the unit for a planned murder-suicide.
The tribunal found she took the patient home on one occasion on August 28, 2004.
A month later she provided the patient with a cellphone and then engaged in personal phone calls and text messages with him.
Ms L was also found to have failed to pass on information she knew about another patient's plans to escape from a unit in the clinic.
A lawyer for the director of proceedings who laid the charge said there were few mitigating factors in Ms L's actions and that she had failed to take responsibility and rather sought to blame others for her failings.
Two independent witnesses said the deficiencies in her practice were so broad and fundamental, and her insight so lacking, that she posed serious risk to herself, patients, colleagues and the public.
But Ms L's lawyer said her client denied having any ongoing personal relationship with the patient.
She did not knowingly or intentionally commit action or inaction that could have resulted in "serious or permanent harm" or put members of the public at risk as stated in the purposes of health legislation.
The tribunal cancelled Ms L's nursing licence and imposed strict conditions should she choose to apply for re-registration.
It also imposed an order for costs totalling $5000, with $2500 earmarked as a contribution to the tribunal's costs and another $2500 to the director's costs.
- NZPA
