KEY POINTS:
A nurse sacked from Wellington's Huntleigh Hospital and Rest Home for incidents including prescribing medication without proper authority has lost her claim for unjustified dismissal.
The Employment Relations Authority said in its finding that Marlene McDowell returned to nursing after 15 years out of the workforce in 2001, initially working two-four days a week. Her job included being acting charge nurse in the absence of a charge nurse on several occasions.
In early 2006 she was asked to take on the acting charge nurse role for two months, working full-time.
"Mrs McDowall was asked to take on this superior role because her performance was seen to be of a good standard," the authority said.
"It was very clear that she got on extremely well with the aged residents and formed close bonds with a number of them and their families, which is greatly to her credit."
However, several incidents occurred relating to prescribing medicines which led to disciplinary action being instigated.
One incident involved a diabetic patient; Mrs McDowall and other nurses used a drug chart from the woman's previous home instead of one by the patient's admitting doctor, as required by law.
"Mrs McDowall did not understand that it was not appropriate to use an insulin sliding chart that was not prescribed by the resident's current doctor and was charted on another institution's chart," the authority said.
"She therefore did not appear to have a clear understanding of the legislative requirements in her scope of practice in relation to medication administration, a finding later made by the Nursing Council."
The use of a previous insulin chart had potentially fatal consequences and Mrs McDowall was "seriously remiss" in failing to query the matter.
"(Operations manager) Angela Crawford was entitled to conclude, as the Nursing Council did later, that the problems raised showed that Mrs McDowall did not meet the required standards of competence for a registered nurse," the authority said.
"Given the responsibility of Huntleigh to ensure that the nursing staff it employs are competent, it follows that dismissal was an option reasonably open to it."
The authority dismissed Mrs McDowall's claims and reserved its decision on costs.
- NZPA
