This post was originally published on this site

A NURSE injected herself with drugs stolen from a hospital, used forged hospital prescriptions to get other drugs and hid a patient’s tablet, until she was caught out by another nurse.

Simone Margaret Morey, who was registered until July, 2014, has been reprimanded for professional misconduct and disqualified from applying for registration for six months.

Ms Morey was employed at a Toowoomba hospital from early 2014 and in July 2014 she was charged with stealing hospital drugs, which she used in a suicide attempt.

She pleaded guilty and was put on a $500 good behaviour bond and the Nursing and Midwifery Board referred her for a disciplinary hearing in Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

In March, 2014, Ms Morey pretended to administer half a tablet of Oxazepam to a hospital patient, but instead kept the tablet in her hand.

Another nurse told her the tablet had not been administered, she pretended to look for it and dropped it on the ground. The other nurse reported the incident.

On April 2, 2014, Ms Morey took 15 ampoules of the restricted drug Propofol, needles, syringes, cannulas and wipes, from the hospital and injected herself in the following month.

Around the same time Ms Morey took two prescriptions for 25 tablets of the drug Oxazepam, with four repeats each, knowing they were forged for her own use.

She presented the forged prescriptions and had them filled at least five times.

The tribunal found her conduct was totally unacceptable for a practising nurse and amounted to a significant breach of the trust between herself and her employer.

She initially denied attempting to use the half tablet of the patient’s drug for her own use and failed to provide an honest explanation for having the forged scripts, the tribunal heard.

It was accepted that at the time she used the misappropriated drugs to attempt suicide Ms Morey was suffering from mental illness and she had since undergone treatment programs.

Although she has not been registered since July 2014, the tribunal decided she should be barred from applying for registration for a further six months.