Nurse reinstated after being disqualified following death of a woman, 74, at Manly Hospital
In 2018 a tribunal found Manly Hospital nurse Merelita Ake guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct and disqualified her from the nursing register. But an August appeal saw her registration reinstated.
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A nurse who was disqualified following the death of a 74-year-old woman has been reinstated at Northern Sydney Local Health District.
In 2018 The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Merelita Ake was guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct which resulted in her being disqualified from the nursing register.
In its ruling the tribunal found Ms Ake had “a serious lack of insight or preparedness to consider mistakes made” and “[her] conduct…falls significantly below the standard expected of a registered nurse of [her] level and experience”.
At the time of the incident, in 2015, Ms Ake was the senior nurse in charge of a unit at Manly Hospital and was caring for a woman with a history of schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa.
The Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted a complaint against Ms Ake, which alleged she had failed to undertake 15 minute observations of the patient and when the patient hadn’t responded, she had not taken appropriate action.
The tribunal that led to her registration being cancelled heard that she failed to check blood pressure, temperature, pulse and respiration and had not called for the Rapid Response Team. Instead, she prioritised changing bed linens and the patient’s pants.
The tribunal prohibited her from applying for a review for at least 12 months.
However, the NSW Deputy State Coroner determined the patient died from natural causes, noting the “direct cause of death being aspiration of gastric contents antecedent to a left middle cerebral artery cerebrovascular accident”.
As part of Ms Ake’s application for review of the cancellation order in August, she claimed to experience “guilt, depression and remorse” following the patient’s death even though it was incomparable to the “loss and inconsolable grief the [patient’s] family would have experienced”.
She also took “full responsibility” for any shortcomings while the patient was in her care and undertook additional training and steps to overcome her lack of clinical knowledge and deficiencies in her clinical practice, identified by the tribunal.
This included working in an administrative role and as an assistant-in-nursing at the Royal North Shore Hospital.
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Ms Ake is set to return to nursing under strict conditions for a period of 12 months. Part of her conditions include not being the nurse in charge of any shift, ward or unit and to undertake a three-month structured training and development program.
The Manly Daily requested an interview with Ms Ake through the NSLHD but the request was declined.
A NSLHD spokeswoman provided a comment but would not elaborate any further.
The spokeswoman would not specify the medical facility Ms Ake would work at.
“Northern Sydney Local Health District will comply with the terms of the decision by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal,” she said.