Elderly in hands of student
RESIDENTS at a Belmont aged care home had their health care put at risk because a student was working as a nurse before she was qualified for the job, a magistrate has said.
Two workers from the 60bed Bupa Barrabool facility have been fined for their role in last year’s fiasco, with student nurse Sophie Bree Dear avoiding a conviction yesterday.
The Geelong Magistrates’ Court heard that on 23 dates between March and June last year Ms Dear performed duties she should not have, including: ADMINISTERING and signing for medication. INJECTING insulin and vitamins into residents. PERFORMING diagnostic tests. CONTACTING a resident’s doctor to discuss medical issues. DIAGNOSING a urine test. MAKING unsupervised and unauthorised notes about the health of residents.
Still studying to be a nurse, she was employed at Bupa as a personal care assistant but was elevated to work shifts as a “community nurse” by general manager Nicole Campbell.
The court was told both women knew the student was not qualified for that job, and Magistrate Ann McGarvie found them “equally responsible”.
Ms Campbell was fined $6000 without conviction and ordered to pay a further $8200 in costs when prosecuted for her offences by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency in June, and Ms Dear incurred the same penalty from Ms McGarvie yesterday.
“While it was unfair of your employer to give you those duties and grant you that responsibility . . . your job was to say, ‘I’m not registered to do this type of work’,” the magistrate said.
Ms McGarvie said it was “common knowledge” only qualified nurses and doctors were allowed to inject patients.
“I accept no one was injured but they were clearly put at risk by allowing a non-registered person to carry out those duties,” she said.
AHPRA prosecutor Frances Hall said a number of residents at Bupa Barrabool were “alarmed and horrified” when they learned the supposed-nurse was not qualified.
She also told the court Ms Dear continued to promote herself on social media sites Facebook and LinkedIn as a nurse for several months after leaving the centre on June 30, 2016.
“You can’t call yourself a nurse until you’ve finished the course and been admitted to practise,” Ms McGarvie said.
While AHPRA argued for a conviction, Ms Dear’s lawyer Michael Brugman fought to protect her career prospects, and said management at Bupa must also take some blame.
Mr Brugman pointed out the centre named Ms Dear as a community nurse on a sign, and issued her a blue nurse’s uniform.
“She was encouraged, authorised and legitimised in that role by the management . . . (and) she got too far ahead of herself,” the lawyer said.