Nurse struck off after stealing hospital drugs

A nurse has been found guilty of pocketing hundreds of prescription drugs while working at Dunedin Hospital.

Julie Powell, who now lives in the United Kingdom, was found guilty of professional misconduct after misappropriating prescription medication for her own use.

Powell did not appear before the New Zealand Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal hearing in Dunedin on June 9, but had her practitioner’s registration as a registered nurse cancelled and was ordered to pay $16,000 in costs and disbursements.

Powell removed prescription medication while working as a nurse in the acute stroke unit on nine separate occasions.

She pleaded guilty in Sept- ember 2012 to one charge of theft in relation to 50 tramadol tablets found in her home two months earlier.

Powell gained a Bachelor of Nursing in 1996, and was recruited to work in New Zealand from the United Kingdom in April 2012. Shortly after she began work in Dunedin it was noticed ‘‘there was an unusual spike’’ in the use of codeine, tramadol and diazepam tablets.

All 12 nurses on the ward had keys to a locked cabinet inside a medicine room.

On July 9, the charge nurse did a stocktake of medicines for the month of June and found hundreds of pills were missing.

Police were advised and a search of Powell’s home on July 20 found tramadol capsules matching the batch number supplied to the ward.