Mental health nurse banned for a decade after starting relationship with woman he treated for thoughts of self-harm

A nurse in a psychiatric wing at a northern suburbs hospital has been banned for a decade after he started a sexual relationship with a female mental health patient.

A nurse has had his registration cancelled after he was found guilty of professional misconduct.

A mental health nurse has been banned from practising medicine for a decade after beginning a sexual relationship with a woman he treated for an acute psychiatric episode at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

The South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a judgment published this week said the nurse had actively tried to mislead investigators and had little insight into his conduct.

The patient was a psychiatric inpatient at the Lyell McEwin Hospital near the end of March 2012.

She had been diagnosed with bipolar years earlier and was experiencing prolonged thoughts of self harm.

The nurse, who The Advertiser has decided not to name to protect the identity of the patient, met the patient for the first time when he was treating her.

In July that year, a month after the patient had been discharged, the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Authority received a notification that the woman and the nurse were living together.

The patient’s father expressed concerns about the relationship but at first refused to tell investigators the name of the “friend” who is daughter was then living with.

When interviewed by investigators the nurse said the woman had been interested in attending the same church as him.

He said that what had started as him telling her about the Catholic parish turned into exchanging phone numbers.

The pair exchanged more than 300 text messages and phone calls, the majority of them while the patient was still on the ward.

A family member of the nurse described the patient as looking “lost”, “like a puppy” and being dependent on her former carer.

In 2015, shortly after the relationship ended, the patient told AHPRA investigators that they had kissed while she was in hospital and had actively tried to cover up the relationship, including sending her to a to a women’s shelter for a week to “get the heat off his shoulders”.

She described the relationship as “boyfriend and girlfriend” and sexual in nature.

In a written statement the patient said that nurse had told her to stop seeing her psychologist and had started reducing her medication, accusations she denied.

A neighbour to the pair said the nurse told him that he had met his partner while she was a patient of his and that he had taken care of her “a bit more than he should have”.

The nurse said he had been the woman’s carer for several years after she was released and that the relationship was “business”.

The Tribunal rejected the nurse’s assertions that they had slept in separate beds and concluded that several of the nurse’s explanations were “false and misleading”.

The nurse’s behaviour was found to amount to professional misconduct.

The Tribunal cancelled his registration as a nurse and banned him from reapplying for ten years.