home<\/a>, cornered by one of the residents.<\/p>\nThe agreed facts said the resident, who had a diagnosis of peripheral vascular dementia, had one hand gripped on the cook\u2019s wrist.<\/p>\n
The resident\u2019s other hand was on her walker.<\/p>\n
She was trying to shut the fire doors but was not letting the staff press the button to release them.<\/p>\n
The nurse approached the resident and, according to the agreed facts, said something to the effect of: \u201cCome on darling, let\u2019s go to your room and you can tell me what your issue is.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, the resident let go of the woman\u2019s wrist and slapped the nurse in a way the cook described as having made \u201ca real crack\u201d.<\/p>\n
It was a \u201cdefinitely hard\u201d hit, the cook said.<\/p>\n
Seconds later, the nurse slapped the patient back with about the same amount of force.<\/p>\n
She then left the room to consult with her manager over the situation.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal has made a ruling on the incident in Invercargill. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n
On her way out, she saw another staff member, whom she told to go and assist the cornered cook and check on the other workers.<\/p>\n
When that staff member went into the dining room, the resident was hitting the cook.<\/p>\n
Reinforcements called<\/p>\n
Other care workers tried to get the resident to stop but she grabbed one of the carer\u2019s arms and rammed her walker into her.<\/p>\n
She then turned back to the cook, grabbed her thumb and bent it back.<\/p>\n
The care workers pried the resident off the cook and pushed a wheelchair under the woman\u2019s legs for her to sit.<\/p>\n
When the nurse told her manager what had happened, the manager advised that they call an ambulance to get the resident out of the home.<\/p>\n
Police had to be called because the resident was unco-operative.<\/p>\n
Three paramedics and four police officers tried to get her into the ambulance, but she slapped two of the officers with a remote control.<\/p>\n
Eventual de-escalation<\/p>\n
Eventually, another carer was called in who was able to calm the woman down.<\/p>\n
The manager later told the Nursing Council that at some point during that time, the nurse confessed to hitting the resident.<\/p>\n
Later, when speaking to a nurse in the emergency department, the manager declared the resident was not allowed to return to the home.<\/p>\n
It was her second paranoid episode, her dementia was progressing and she had assaulted staff, the manager said.<\/p>\n
Despite this, there was an attempt made to return the woman to the rest home, but she refused to go inside.<\/p>\n
Later, the woman was taken into another rest home with dementia-level care.<\/p>\n
The day after the incident, the manager discussed it with the nurse, who acknowledged she should not have assaulted the client.<\/p>\n
She said it was an \u201cinstant reaction\u201d and accepted there would be consequences.<\/p>\n
Two days later, she was suspended with full pay pending an investigation. She was later dismissed. <\/p>\n
It was a \u2018reaction\u2019<\/p>\n
The nurse told the disciplinary tribunal she was not claiming to have hit her client in self-defence.<\/p>\n
It was merely a \u201creaction\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout this whole process, I have been very transparent and I\u2019ve accepted my actions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She realised her behaviour was unprofessional and would bring the nursing profession into disrepute.<\/p>\n
The rest home\u2019s management had not done anything about the client\u2019s aggressive behaviour, she said, and she felt let down by them.<\/p>\n
But she \u201cwholeheartedly\u201d took responsibility for her actions and would take whatever penalties were imposed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI regret what I\u2019ve done,\u201d she said. \u201cMy mind was gone. I can only learn from this.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she knew it wouldn\u2019t happen again because of the effect it had on her life, her family and her job.<\/p>\n
The woman missed nursing, interacting with residents and helping people through \u201ctheir time of need\u201d.<\/p>\n
Understaffed and missed training<\/p>\n
Before the incident, and despite working at the rest home for some years, the nurse had not completed the home\u2019s de-escalation training.<\/p>\n
She said she had not received the training because of short staffing.<\/p>\n
The woman asked the tribunal to recognise she was not only a nurse, but a care worker who spent more \u201ctime on the floor\u201d interacting with residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would be the only incident that I\u2019ve had where my mind went blank,\u201d she told the tribunal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no reason for it, to be truthful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just was assaulted and reacted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since her dismissal, she had completed the de-escalation programme and one year of study to become a registered nurse.<\/p>\n
She was planning to relocate and return to work and studying.<\/p>\n
The tribunal censured the nurse and ordered her to complete a Nursing Council-approved de-escalation programme within six months of resuming work as a nurse.<\/p>\n
On returning to work, she must also be mentored by a council-approved supervisor for six months.<\/p>\n
She was also ordered to pay 10% of the Nursing Council\u2019s costs, an estimate of more than $3000.<\/p>\n
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s currently based in Auckland covering justicerelated stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pleas for help The teleconference hearing heard the woman had completed an Enrolled Nursing diploma and was registered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2840,11519,27079,83834,799,209828,1872,2082,6098,42,1345,18390,5165,43,11515,10710,28029,104646,104643,26660,40,38,41,39,102],"class_list":["post-407743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-across","tag-causing","tag-censured","tag-cracking","tag-dementia","tag-enrolled","tag-face","tag-for","tag-hard","tag-headlines","tag-home","tag-invercargill","tag-loud","tag-news","tag-nurse","tag-resident","tag-rest","tag-slapped","tag-slapping","tag-sound","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}