Nurse struck off for trying to sell cannabis oil to cancer patient
A NURSE who worked at the Queen’s Medical Centre has been struck off having attempted to convince a cancer patient to purchase cannabis oil from her for her own profit.
Eliska Neuzilova had been working at the hospital, run by Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), in June 2018 when the incident happened.
Ms Neuzilova had been treating a patient, who has since died, at the Neuro-spinal Post Operative Unit (or NSPU) when she made an attempt to convince them to purchase cannabis oil. She had been involved with a company which sold the oil at the time.
As part of the attempt Ms Neuzilova used the patient’s records to find their address before paying them a visit to deliver a leaflet advertising cannabis oil for sale.
A Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practise Committee hearing, held from December 6 to 8, concluded that “a health care professional giving advice on supplements or treatments that are not supported by medical evidence is inappropriate and potentially dangerous”.
She was struck off the register as a result.
Miss Neuzilova did not attend the hearing as she no longer lives in the UK or wishes to practise nursing in the UK. The first charge stated: “Between June 23 and June 29, 2018, tried to induce Patient A to purchase cannabis oil for your own financial gain.”
A separate charge, relating to the administering of nimodipine (used to treat injury relating to brain haemorrhaging), was also lodged.
It stated she had failed to contemporaneously record it on a separate patient’s medication chart.
Documents from the hearing state: “The panel was cognisant that cannabis oil is not a goldstandard medical treatment in Patient A’s circumstances, and, regardless of Miss Neuzilova’s personal beliefs, it was satisfied that a health care professional giving advice on supplements or treatments that are not supported by medical evidence is inappropriate and potentially dangerous.
“This therefore represents a serious departure from professional standards. Further, the panel determined that Patient A was highly vulnerable, and Miss Neuzilova was in a position of trust.”
The patient’s family contacted NUH and initially claimed the nurse had “tried to convince Patient A to stop eating sugar and to take cannabis oil to cure her cancer”.
“The panel finds that Patient A and her family were put at risk of emotional harm, and that Patient B was put at risk of permanent physical harm as a result of Miss Neuzilova’s misconduct,” the documents add.
“Miss Neuzilova’s misconduct breached the fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and therefore brought its reputation into disrepute.”
The panel did consider and recognise Ms Neuzilova had expressed an apology to the patients in question and their family members. But the apology only came almost two years after the incidents had taken place and after she “initially characterised the concerns involving Patient A as ‘seriously over the top’”.