Fired nurse gets $27k
A nurse has been awarded more than $27,000 after being unfairly dismissed from her job.
An Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ruling found Five Pillars Limited, which operated Port View Rest Home in New Plymouth, unjustly dismissed Cindy Millar in November 2014.
The employment dispute started when Millar, who had been working at the rest home since July 2013, was called in to care for a resident on May 14, 2014. After dealing with him for two hours she decided to call an ambulance and told the ERA that in the hurry to care for the man, she forgot to fill out the required paperwork.
The Taranaki District Health Board (TDHB) launched an investigation into the incident after it received a complaint from a nurse at the hospital about the lack of paperwork. However, Millar wasn’t told about the investigation until August 29.
While the TDHB investigation was under way, a second problem started when a new resident moved into the rest home and a facilities manager, Geraldine Pullen, allegedly allowed her to keep a large amount of OxyNorm, a strong painkiller, in her room.
Millar told the ERA she convinced the woman to give her the medication which she counted with a staff member and locked in a medicine cupboard, before she took it to a pharmacy. An audit of the rest home claimed the number of tablets in the cupboard didn’t match what was recorded.
After a meeting on August 18 with Pullen and the rest home’s director nurse, Cora Noblejas, Millar was told the TDHB wasn’t happy for her to work as a nurse and was asked to use her annual leave to upskill.
Millar asked if she was being fired but Noblejas said she wasn’t so she then took time off. Millar said she was unsure if she was still employed after the meeting and on September 25 Community Law sent a letter on her behalf asking about her employment. Port View didn’t reply and on October 20, 2014 stopped paying her.
After two more letters from Community Law, Port View sent one back which said they had been waiting for Millar to upskill.
The ERA ordered Five Pillars Limited to pay $14,560 in lost wages, $6000 compensation and $6720 to cover the annual leave.