According to the charging document, the sonographer, who has interim name suppression, used methamphetamine while registered as a medical radiation technologist from December 2023 to at least March 2024.
She had been under health monitoring by the Medical Radiation Technologists Board of New Zealand and had promised to maintain abstinence.
In January 2024 a pregnant woman suspected the woman was on drugs during an appointment and complained to her employer.
It was not a particular of the charge that the sonographer was using methamphetamine at work or on drugs at work, but rather that she was a regular user of the illegal drug.
In March 2024, while her employer was investigating the complaint, the sonographer was asked to provide urine samples for drug testing.
She twice supplied another person’s urine for drug testing.
Despite the invalid urine tests, a hair follicle test showed she had been consuming methamphetamine regularly.
Goldwater told the tribunal she continues to access meth weekly.
“It’s still in her life.”
She conceded she was currently not fit to practise, he said.
He told the tribunal it was accepted there was manipulation and an attempt to avoid the urine test “but it was not so much calculated as a panic reaction to her situation”.
Tribunal chairperson Susan Hughes questioned how it could be panicked when the sonographer had sourced urine, brought it into her workplace and gave it to be tested. Hughes called it “calculated”.
Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) counsel Jo Hughson said the sonographer demonstrated a willingness to deceive her employer and was nonchalant about her drug use, even saying: “I know it’s not ideal, but there are a lot of things we do that aren’t ideal”.
She denied drug use to her employer and told them she never used drugs despite regularly using and being monitored by the board previously, Hughson said.
Hughson told the tribunal the sonographer tried to mislead the PCC by not admitting she had provided fake urine samples until later in the proceedings.
The PCC submitted she was not fit to be a sonographer and her registration needed to be cancelled.
As well as cancelling her registration, the tribunal censured the sonographer. It also denied her application for permanent name suppression, which will lapse when the tribunal publishes its decision.
Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.
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