Psych nurse guilty of sexually abusing patients

The Health Disciplinary Tribunal has found a former nurse who worked at a Christchurch hospital looking after the intellectually disabled was sexually abusing his patients.

The abuse against two patients happened in March 1990 and March 1992, a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal report released today said.

The nurse, known as Mr Y, worked mostly in the family room at the hospital with children 12 years or older who had intellectual disabilities.

The charge nurse for that section of the hospital, Ms R, told the tribunal of two incidents involving two of the patients.

In the first, a young female resident walked into the section greatly distressed, with grass in her hair and clothes. An incident form was completed and the police called. The severity of the girl's disability meant she could not tell anyone what had happened to her.

The second incident occurred on a night shift where a male resident was found in his bed covered with wet grass with his incontinence product off. The lawns had been mowed that day.

Police were made aware of the sexual abuse accusation against Mr Y after his counsellor told them Mr Y had confessed his crimes in return for entering a programme for sexual predators.

The counsellor allowed him to join as long as he quit working for the hospital immediately.

Police informed hospital staff about the allegation, but neither Ms R nor her colleague, Jennifer Deane, who was involved with sexual abuse prevention at the hospital, found any evidence connecting Mr Y with abusing patients.

In 2008 Ms Deane made a complaint about the offences to the Nursing Council after discovering Mr Y was returning to nursing.

Mr Y told the tribunal that when he spoke to the counsellor he felt his life was spinning out of control and he was drowning in "melancholy and joylessness".

He said that he heard voices "the demons in my head were so loud and so persuasive I could no longer fight them I did not have the energy, I just gave in".

He denied he had confessed to the counsellor about any crimes and said he had joined the sex offenders programme because he had been a victim of sexual abuse.

But the tribunal did not accept that Mr Y was suffering from a psychotic episode at the time of the offending.

"If he had been psychotic, hearing voices or demons, then one would have expected that there would have been some significant sequelae to this including anti psychotic medication. None of this happened and even today Mr Y is not taking anything other than antidepressants," the tribunal's report said.

The tribunal believed the counsellor's evidence that Mr Y had confessed to the abuse allegations.

It found Mr Y guilty of professional misconduct by sexually abusing residents in his care and asked the Professional Conduct Committee to submit penalty recommendations within 21 days.

- NZPA