Yarrawonga nurse who worked ‘off her f—ing tree’ stole patient’s pain meds to fuel addiction

Yarrawonga aged care residents were left in pain after a thieving local nurse swapped their strong painkillers for basic over-the-counter meds to fuel her “debilitating addiction”

Yarrawonga Health’s aged care resident were left in pain after their meds were swapped by a nurse. Picture: Yarrawonga Health

Elderly Victorians were denied proper pain relief after an aged care nurse stole their pain killers and worked while “off her f—ing tree”, a tribunal has heard.

Vivian Mallows swapped patients medications — at times substituting oxycodone for Gastro Stop — while caring for residents at Yarrawonga Health’s aged care unit, Karana.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal banned Ms Mallows from nursing for at least two years after hearing she had a painkiller addiction, worked a shift while under the influence and fed her habit by stealing from patients and the drug safe between November 2019 and June 2020.

She worked in aged care for the majority of this period, but, prior to the pandemic, sometimes worked in the hospital’s acute ward.

Ms Mallows — who has already pleaded guilty to related criminal charges — was caught after a resident’s family queried pharmacy bills for morphine and benzodiazepine.

The Tribunal heard Ms Mallows had ordered medications for her own use and pretended it was behalf of six different patients, receiving 100 oxycodone tablets, 50 benzodiazepine pills and 20 morphine capsules in less than three months.

The aged care residents had their strong painkiller meds swapped for basic over-the-counter meds.

But it was the stealing of medication from patients and drug storage that prompted the most concern, which the Nursing and Midwifery Board argued “had the potential to seriously compromise patient safety and care” and “affect their pain management”.

VCAT found she “tampered” with restricted medications by “substituting the contents of the boxes with different medications” between November 2019 and May 2020, swapping strong painkillers like oxycodone and morphine for over the counter medications such as Gastro Stop and Aspirin.

The Tribunal heard a colleague described Ms Mallows as “off her f---ing tree” on a shift in June, with slurred and odd speech, bizarre outbursts of laughter and unusual eye and head movements.

Copies of her notes from that shift contained strange sentence structure and spelling, while the Tribunal heard she also used white-out to alter their dangerous drugs records book that day.

The Board said her willingness to put “vulnerable patients at risk of harm by attending work while substance affected” was “unacceptable”.

Gastro Stop and Aspirin were instead given to residents.

She has not worked since she resigned on June 26 2020 — the same day Yarrawonga Health reported her to the regulator — and she self-reported four days later.

Her psychiatrist’s report for the Tribunal said the ex-nurse had a history of depression — linked to chronic pain and deteriorating health — and a “moderate opiate use disorder and benzodiazepine use disorder”.

The Tribunal ruled her behaviour was professional misconduct but said Mallows had good rehabilitation prospects.

They said she would have been disqualified for longer than two years were it not for positive factors, including her early guilty plea to criminal charges, co-operation with police and recovery efforts, including finding employment.

“Having been in the grip of a debilitating addiction … Ms Mallows has achieved a remarkable and commendable change in her circumstances,” they said.

Originally published as Yarrawonga nurse who worked ‘off her f—ing tree’ stole patient’s pain meds to fuel addiction