A nurse has been cleared of allegations she gave children “heavy-hitting sedatives” they weren’t prescribed. Ms H, who has interim name suppression, appeared before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal facing a professional misconduct charge. Ms H was accused of administering sedatives she was not allowed to give without supervision, or which were not prescribed, to two patients while working as an intern clinical nurse specialist in an Auckland hospital emergency department in 2017. On Friday, the tribunal found although some of her actions amounted to misconduct, the main allegations were not proven and she will face no punishment. In relation to both patients, the tribunal agreed Ms H failed to document the name of the senior medical officer (SMO) who gave the verbal order to give the drugs, and failed to write the acronym ‘pp’, plus the prescriber’s name. She also failed to record that Patient A had received intravenous propofol and fentanyl on their medical notes. “We’ve found non-professional misconduct but we’ve determined the conduct is not serious enough to warrant a sanction or penalty against you,” Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal chairwoman Alison Douglass said.
…
