VCAT: Ex-nurse Samantha Bidmade reprimanded, banned from practising
A former Geelong nurse convicted of trafficking drugs will have to wait to continue her nursing career, after a tribunal cancelled her registration ands banned her from applying again.
A former Geelong nurse who was repeatedly nabbed dealing drugs has been struck from the profession.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has reprimanded Samantha Ann Bidmade, cancelled her registration as a health practitioner and disqualified her from applying for registration again for three years in a November 3 ruling.
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia twice referred Bidmade, 33, to the tribunal over unprofessional conduct and failing to notify the board of criminal charges within seven days.
She faced a hearing on September 24 this year, before VCAT members John Billings, Natalie Angliss and Leonie Baker handed down their ruling.
According to facts outlined in the published ruling, Bidmade fronted Geelong Magistrates Court numerous times between 2019 and 2022.
She was convicted of trafficking ice more than once, as well as trafficking heroin and GHB, handling stolen goods, dealing with the proceeds of crime, unlicensed driving and a litany of other offences.
On one occasion, she was found with a fake driver’s licence and Medicare card, on another she had counterfeit money in the form of 44 fake $100 notes.
In February 2021, police raided her home and found deal bags, digital scales and five mobile phones, two of which contained evidence of trafficking.
Bidmade was registered as a nurse in 2012 and worked at Geelong hospital until 2019.
Her registration was suspended on August that year and she has remained suspended since.
Bidmade told the tribunal she suffered a workplace injury in 2018 and fell into drug use to medicate her pain.
The criminal charges were a “devastating turning point for her”, stripping her of the career she felt was her “identity and sense of purpose”, the members said.
She had since undergone “extensive rehabilitation” including nine months in residence at Odyssey House, followed by a community program, and been largely substance free for nearly a year.
She was “determined to rebuild her life with resilience, honesty and integrity”.
In their ruling, the members said they were concerned that during the hearing, Bidmade was “focused on herself and what it meant to her to have a career in nursing” rather than the potential damage to nursing’s reputation or harm to patients.
“We have formed the view that she has not yet acquired an adequate degree of insight and that there remains a real risk of reoffending while her rehabilitation continues,” the members wrote.
Another concern raised by the members was Bidmade’s submission that she only became addicted to drugs following her injury, when some evidence pointed to earlier substance use.
“Ms Bidmade appeared to us to minimise the significance of her previous drug use, saying that drugs ‘were never an issue’ and that she was not addicted until 2018,” the members wrote.
However, Bidmade was “to be commended for the progress she has made in her rehabilitation”, and the members noted her desire to return to nursing in the future.
They added: “our determinations are not intended to discourage her. Our primary purpose is to protect the public”.
During the hearing, it was revealed that Bidmade was on bail for further charges, which she
“declined to specify” but said she had “valid defences” for.
On Monday, Bidmade pleaded guilty in the Geelong Magistrates Court to possessing ice and 1,4 butanediol as well as refusing a blood test.
She was fined $1000 and lost her licence for four years.
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Originally published as VCAT: Ex-nurse Samantha Bidmade reprimanded, banned from practising
