The nurse did not meet the father during those visits but did so later.
She then hired the father to do some building work, around the time the baby’s parents were splitting up, and had him move into her home bubble at the time of the first Covid lockdown.
The names of the nurse, the baby and the family, and the geographic location where events occurred have all been suppressed by the High Court.
The baby’s parents’ relationship broke down in January 2020, although they were still attending couple’s counselling in February.
In March 2020, the mother checked her husband’s phone and saw that he had been contacting the nurse frequently, and posted on the nurse’s Facebook page that she was in a relationship with her husband.
The nurse asked the mother to take the post down, saying she and the father were just good friends.
The same day, the mother sent the nurse a text saying “I want to f***** kill myself thanks alot”.
The nurse subsequently agreed that the father could stay with her for the Covid lockdown which began on March 23, 2020.
The mother complained about the relationship to the nurse’s employer, leading to a charge of professional misconduct being laid before the Health Practitioner’s Disciplinary Tribunal.
The tribunal found a charge of professional misconduct had been established but did not consider that she had lowered the reputation of the nursing profession.
It censured her and made an order that she pay $26,938 in costs.
The nurse appealed against the tribunal’s findings to the High Court, telling it she had been “essentially made a scapegoat”.
She said her conduct was not so serious that it warranted a disciplinary sanction.
She said the father had not been involved in any professional interactions with her as a nurse, and the relationship had no connection whatsoever with her nursing role or her fitness to practise.
Nor did the relationship become intimate until after the time she understood that her professional nursing role with the child and the family had ended, she said.
Tribunal found malpractice
The tribunal considered that the nurse had breached her professional code of conduct by not maintaining a professional boundary between her and the baby’s father and that this amounted to negligence and malpractice.
It also found that her failure to inform her superiors about the mother’s text mentioning she wanted to kill herself was negligent, even though the nurse told the father and other mutual contacts who knew them both.
After the nurse appealed to the High Court, Justice Karen Grau found the nurse did “neglect her professional duty” in relation to the text mentioning suicide, but this was not serious enough to warrant a finding of professional misconduct.
Justice Grau also found that the nurse’s conduct with the father did not arise out of, or have anything to do with, the nursing relationship or the care the nurse provided to the mother and baby.
“Rather, it is a case falling into the category of ‘an unwise act’ or carelessness by a health professional in their personal life, when the relationship between the nurse and the father intensified ‘too soon’, both after the end of the father’s relationship with the mother and in relationship to the nursing relationship with the family,” Justice Grau said.
“The short point is that, when the principal purpose of the [Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003] is to protect the health and safety of members of the public, that purpose is not advanced by a disciplinary response to the human error or personal transgression that occurred in this case.”
Tribunal erred, says judge
Justice Grau found that the tribunal was wrong in its assessment of the nurse’s conduct as amounting to professional misconduct, and set aside its findings.
“My finding does not, however, imply any approval of what has happened in this case,” she said.
“The mother was well justified in being as hurt and upset as she was.
“But no additional professional punishment of the nurse was required by way of a permanent mark on the nurse’s record.”
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.
