Nurse Tara Seymour will not face a challenge to relaxed drug screening ruling

THERE will be no appeal to a VCAT decision to relax drug checks on a nurse who blamed “sweaty sex” for her latest failed test, despite medical authorities arguing tougher testing is needed.

Tara Seymour will not face a challenge to her VCAT win to reduce drug checks.

• Nurse blames sex for positive drug test
• ‘Sweaty sex’ nurse appeal unclear

COCAINE-snorting nurse Tara Seymour will not face a challenge to her relaxed drug screening regimen despite medical authorities arguing tougher testing was needed to keep the public safe.

The John Fawkner Private Hospital nurse blamed sweaty sex with a drug user for a positive cocaine test while convincing the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to reduce the drug testing imposed on her by the Nursing and Midwifery Board.

The board and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency had until last week to appeal the VCAT decision to place Ms Seymour on Group 2 level drug tests — four random urine samples a month and a quarterly hair test — rather than more onerous Group 1 screening — 12 random urine samples a month and quarterly hair tests.

Ms Seymour convinced VCAT to relax her drug screening.

Nurse Tara Seymour blamed sweaty sex for positive cocaine test.

The authorities argued tougher testing was needed to protect the public and ensure Ms Seymour, who has also failed previous tests, remained drug free. However, a week after refusing to say if an appeal was being considered, AHPRA spokeswoman Rachael Davies told the Herald Sun the board had accepted the VCAT ruling.

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NURSE BLAMES SEX FOR POSITIVE DRUG TEST

‘SWEATY SEX’ NURSE APPEAL UNCLEAR

“In making its decision, we recognise that the tribunal had more information available to it than was available to the board,” she said.

The board and AHPRA again refused to comment on why no action was taken when Ms Seymour’s suspected illicit drug use was first brought to attention in 2014.

Tara Seymour at work at the John Fawkner Private Hospital.

The John Fawkner Private Hospital says Ms Seymour has a sound nursing record.

The John Fawkner Private Hospital says Ms Seymour is appropriately supervised and has a sound nursing record, with colleagues describing her as a “passionate nurse”.

The Herald Sun revealed last month that Ms Seymour asked VCAT to relax the Group 1 testing imposed by the board following her latest positive test, complaining she had previously found this testing inconvenient, intrusive, humiliating as well as financially and emotionally costly.

Ms Seymour denied using cocaine prior to her most recent failed drug tests last November, claiming her sample was contaminated after having sex with a “very sweaty” man the night before and morning of her random urine test.

VCAT preferred chemical pathologist Julia Chang’s evidence that cross contamination from the exchange of bodily fluids was “highly improbable” and the levels recorded by Ms Seymour would likely require the absorption of half a litre of sweat or semen.

VCAT was also critical of Ms Seymour’s lack of candour, noting she had previously denied illicit drug use until confronted with positive tests for methamphetamine and amphetamine, when she eventually admitted occasional social use, including taking pills of unknown substance in Thailand early last year and inhaling a powder she assumed was cocaine at a 50th birthday party in April last year.

VCAT rejected Ms Seymour’s preferred once monthly urine and quarterly hair testing as insufficient but did substitute the Board’s Group 1 testing order with less frequent Group 2 tests, saying they met all the board’s concerns.

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