Former NT nurse disqualified for professional misconduct

A REGISTERED nurse who used to work at a NT not-for-profit mental health service has been disqualified

A REGISTERED nurse who used to work at a NT not-for-profit mental health service has been disqualified from practising for forging medical practitioners’ signatures to access prescription medication.

In a recent case, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal was told that Darren Sanger misappropriated blank prescription pads belonging to medical practitioners, prepared false prescriptions to himself, forged the practitioners’ signatures and presented the false prescriptions for self-administration a number of times while employed in NT and Victoria between 22 February 2016 and 18 April 2018.

He was employed with Headspace Darwin in the NT between 22 February 2016 and 4 July 2017 and at Wyndham Clinic Private Hospital in Victoria between 15 May 2017 and 25 June 2017.

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The VCAT also heard Mr Sanger later provided false and/or misleading information to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia between 26 February 2016 and 16 May 2018.

It came after the board investigated him, suspended his registration and required him to attend a health assessment in late 2017.

In his decision, VCAT Senior Member Gerard Butcher cancelled Mr Sanger’s registration as a nurse and disqualified him from applying for registration for 12 months.

Mr Butcher noted Mr Sanger had been caught up in “unfortunate circumstances” the result of a workplace injury at the time and no member of the public had been impacted by his actions.

However, he said the sentence needed to provide general deterrence.

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“Nursing is a well respected profession and the public should be able to have confidence that members of the profession are people of the highest integrity,” he said.

“To erode the reputation of the profession is a very serious matter which has the potential to undermine the confidence of the public in the profession.”