Nurse stole off patients

A GOLD Coast nurse who stole credit cards from the bedside of seven patients has been banned from health care for five years.

Nathaniel Scott McAndrew spent more than $2000 of patients’ money.

His ban may be lifted early if he can prove to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia he is fit to practise.

The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) cancelled his registration after a hearing this month.

McAndrew was working at the John Flynn Private Hospital’s coronary care unit when he took the credit cards from the patients’ bedside drawers in December 2017 and January 2018.

He then used the cards to make multiple purchases under $100.

Police raided his home on January 31, 2018, and found steroids and tadalafil – a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction – which he did not have prescriptions for.

He was fined $3000 and no convictions recorded when he pleaded guilty in Coolangatta Magistrates Court on December 13, 2019, to seven counts of stealing, eight counts of fraud, possessing dangerous drugs and possessing restricted drugs.

John Flynn Private Hospital fired McAndrew when he was charged in February 2018 and the health ombudsman suspended his nursing registration.

QCAT deputy president Judge John Allen made the decision to ban him for providing health care for five years when the case was put before him this month.

The ban starts from when his registration was suspended.

“The respondent’s theft from extremely vulnerable patients constitutes a gross breach of trust of those patients, his employer, his professional colleagues and the public,” Judge Allen said in his ruling.

“The public expects that nurses comply strictly with regulations governing use of prescribed drugs in both their professional and private lives.”

Judge Allen capped the ban at five years.

“It would not extend that long should (McAndrew), at an earlier time, satisfy the (Nursing and Midwifery) Board of his fitness to practise and obtain re-registration as a nurse,” he said.

McAndrew did not provide QCAT with any information about his current circumstances.

Judge Allen did refer to a psychiatrist’s report written in July 2019 which showed McAndrew had been diagnosed with bipolar and medication he was on may have indirectly contributed to the stealing and fraud.