Heartbroken nurse bombarded sick patient with threatening messages

A Queensland nurse bombarded a sick woman who had been a patient on her hospital ward with threatening, obscene, angry and immature messages via social media, after she learned the woman was dating her ex-boyfriend, a tribunal has heard.

A heartbroken Queensland nurse bombarded a sick woman who had been a patient on her hospital ward with threatening, obscene, angry and immature messages via social media, after she learned the woman was dating her ex-boyfriend, also a former ward patient, a tribunal has heard.

Tracey Lea Bothwell, now 47, from Kallangur in Brisbane’s northern suburbs, a veteran nurse on the thoracic ward at Prince Charles Hospital, sent the messages via Facebook over a period of weeks starting on 23 March 2016, using both her own Facebook account, one in her daughter’s name and through other various accounts.

When the messages became threatening, the young woman who was suffering from cystic fibrosis, reported Ms Bothwell to Prince Charles Hospital (PCH) and an investigation began into the messages and Ms Bothwell’s 3.5 year sexual relationship with the man, also a cystic fibrosis sufferer, who was in the ward awaiting a lung transplant.

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The relationship began in 2012 when the male patient was receiving direct nursing care at PCH from Ms Bothwell, and continued until the end of 2015, when he was no longer an in-patient at the hospital, the tribunal heard.

The man later started dating the female cystic fibrosis sufferer, whom he had also met on the thoracic ward.

Details of the Ms Bothwell’s actions were revealed in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal where she was reprimanded for professional misconduct and ordered to do a course in professional boundaries.

The state’s medical watchdog, the health ombudsman, unsuccessfully argued that the tribunal should suspend Ms Bothwell from nursing for a year.

Ms Bothwell is allowed to keep her job as an enrolled nurse at an unspecificied institution, however she resigned from PCH on August 19, 2016, after 11 years at the hospital.

After leaving PCH she worked as an endorsed enrolled nurse at aged-care home RSL Caboolture in 2016 but left in 2017 when the health ombudsman slapped conditions on her registration pending the outcome of its misconduct investigation.

Ms Bothwell initially lied by denying she had a sexual relationship with the male patient when she notified the health ombudsman of “boundary violations” with a patient in April 2016.

She claimed she only ever met him in public places.

She later admitted that she had a consensual sexual relationship with the male patient after she met him outside the hospital after he gave her his mobile phone number and they began texting each other in 2012.

Ms Bothwell argued she went bankrupt in May 2017 after she lost her job due to the investigation.