Hospital ‘didn’t want nurse to work for HSE’

Medic ‘failed basic tests’, hearing is told

A HOSPITAL refused to allow a nurse resign as it wanted to make sure he would not be hired by an agency that provides staff to HSE hospitals.

And Cork University Hospital’s former director of nursing Mary Mills also insisted that Nathaniel De Asis not be given a reference.

She told the nursing board how shocked she was when she found out the 43-year-old, who had allegedly failed basic competency tests in the hospital’s intensive care unit, was job-hunting.

He is alleged to have failed the tests despite working as an emergency department nurse in the HSE for more than seven years.

Ms Mills was giving evidence at a nursing board hearing into 56 allegations against the nurse who has since left the country and did not attend the two-day hearing.

The board is due to make a decision on Thursday into the allegations against Mr De Asis, who lived on Alden Grove, Douglas, Cork, before returning to his native Philippines.

He is alleged to have made serious errors on dozens of occasions in 2014 and 2015. It is alleged, for example, that he have tried to move a patient out of a high dependency observation room at Cork University Hospital, where he worked until January 2015, because he ‘didn’t want to look after’ the person.

Mr De Asis is also alleged to have moved a patient into the hospital’s ICU who had not been cleaned before an operation and was found to have faeces on his body.

It was also alleged he was unable to attach an oxygen mask onto a patient, dress wounds or even wash his hands properly.

Answering questions from barrister Lorna Lynch, who represents the CEO of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, Ms Mills told of repeated opportunities Mr De Asis had to prove he was competent to do his job.

And she had warned him at a meeting on January 6, 2015, that unless he passed these assessments, she would consider the option of terminating his contract. It was at this meeting that he revealed he was looking for work elsewhere.

Ms Mills told the hearing: ‘He shocked me by saying that he is seeking other employment.

‘He said that: “I may go work in the agency but I will see. I’m going to look for another job”... I very clearly became quite concerned because of what was going on. I had to maintain patient

‘Would not be given reference’ ‘I had to maintain patient safety’

safety... So I said to him at that stage: “You can’t just resign. We will not be able to give you a reference.”’

She also said that she told Mr De Asis that she would also have to notify the one agency that the HSE recruits nursing from, which is Nurse On Call.

‘Several other nurses would have left over the years and come back from the agency so there would be a likelihood of him coming back into us,’ she told the hearing.