Medic struck off for inhaling laughing gas while at work

AN NHS medic has been struck off after inhaling laughing gas from anaesthetic equipment during her shifts.

Ruramayi Runzirwayi, an operating department practitioner, self-administered nitrous oxide and oxygen on several occasions.

When she was caught inhaling the gas, she claimed she had been testing the equipment, a disciplinary hearing was told.

In August 2018, the agency worker had been employed at the Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, for a month, preparing equipment for doctors before surgery.

She was working as an assistant to a consultant anaesthetist, referred to only as Dr JE, who told the committee that after one operation he saw Miss Runzirwayi holding the end of a tube, carrying

‘She put patients at unwarranted risk of harm by inhaling nitrous oxide during her shift’

anaesthetic, close to her face. When he asked her what she was doing, she said there was a fault with the machine.

He later saw Miss Runzirwayi standing by the anaesthetic machine, this time with the tube inside her mouth.

When she was confronted about this, she accepted she had inhaled nitrous oxide and had lied about the machine not working. Her agency was informed and she did not return to the hospital.

A committee of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service also heard about similar incidents in February 2019, when Miss Runzirwayi was working at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford.

It ruled that Miss Runzirwayi “put patients at unwarranted risk of harm” by “inhaling nitrous oxide during her shift” and had brought the profession into disrepute.

The committee said that it had no other option but to strike her off.