Emil Martin Torroba suspended after squeezing buttocks, sharing explicit group chat messages to staff

A male nurse who sent sexually explicit images to staff members said he was just “being collegiate” and “joking around”. But a legal tribunal has lashed the conduct – labelled it “highly offensive and unacceptable”.

Mr Torroba worked as a nurse at Westmead Hospital.

A male nurse at a major Sydney hospital has been suspended after an investigation found he sent colleagues sexually explicit and “obscene images” and squeezed the buttocks of a fellow staff member.

Emil Martin Torroba has had his medical registration suspended for nine months following a Health Care Complaints Commission investigation into his conduct while working as a nurse at Westmead Hospital between 2019 to 2020.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal – which issued the suspension – found Mr Torroba touched a colleague without her consent by squeezing her buttocks while she was standing in a hospital ward.

Mr Torroba also made inappropriate comments to staff and sent inappropriate messages to colleagues.

The messages sent by Mr Torroba included 28 “sexually explicit and obscene images” circulated to an online staff group chat forum that included women photographed in sexually suggestive positions and images depicting naked women and male genitalia.

Mr Torroba worked at Westmead Hospital.

One video depicted a female body wearing surgical masks over her breasts with the written words: “Be sure to wear your mask correctly!”

There was also an image depicting a man pointing at the camera with the written words: “Why don’t vegetarians moan during sex? Because they don’t want to admit that a piece of meat makes them happy”.

The incidents were investigated by the Health Care Complaints Commission.

Another photo depicted a person hosing a woman, naked from the waist down with the caption: “When the last guy she dated was from Penrith”.

Mr Torroba resigned from the hospital in March 2021 – four months after his employer – the NSW Western Sydney Local Health District – notified him it had received complaints from staff about his conduct.

Prior to his resignation, he had held various positions at the hospital across an 11 year period including in a leadership position.

In his evidence to the tribunal, Mr Torroba expressed he was “ashamed” by his conduct and said he was “no longer in group chats and no longer used derogatory language”.

He described the exchanges with his colleagues as “joking around” and “being collegiate”.

In issuing the suspension, the tribunal found Mr Torroba guilty of both unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct, and labelled his conduct as “highly offensive and unacceptable”.

“It beggars belief that an experienced registered nurse would consider that comments (that were made to colleagues) to be treated as some form of joke,” the tribunal states.

“It appears that Facebook facilitated this type of conduct and even though some of the words added to the captions appeared to be intended as some form of humour, highly objectionable humour we may add, they could not possibly objectively be regarded as acceptable in circumstances where they were accompanied by pictures of females in a demeaning and inappropriate position.

“There is no room for this type of messaging to be sent to nursing colleagues while at work.”

The tribunal suspended Mr Torroba’s registration for nine months and imposed protective conditions on his registration.

The conditions include orders stipulating that cannot return to practice as a nurse until he undertakes mentoring and has a supervisor in place which must be approved by the NSW Nursing and Midwifery Council.