A NURSE faces more than 80 charges of professional misconduct, including calling a colleague a “suicide bomber”.
The complaints against Allison Barregon also include failing to monitor coma patients properly, saying she “didn’t care” if a patient had dementia, and dispensing medicine without gloves or a spoon.
The nurse, who worked in the specialist dementia unit at Ayr Hospital between 2003 and 2007, did not turn up to start of the disciplinary hearing this week.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council hearing in Edinburgh is considering a total of 81 charges against Ms Barregon.
John Mathoru, chairman of the panel hearing the case, said she had ‘voluntarily absented’ herself from the proceedings, which would continue without her.
Aggressive
Appearing as a witness for the NMC, Christine Sommerville, acting charge nurse at the unit where Ms Barregon was based, said left a 93-year-old woman sitting on a commode on her own as she was calling for help.
She said Ms Barregon then left another nurse to deal with taking the woman, referred to as patient F, to the shower alone.
She said: “Nurse Lowe said Nurse Barregon had made no attempt to assist patient F. She left despite being aware that she required two nurses to deal with her hygiene.
“Nurse Lowe said she felt nervous when dealing with nurse Barregon.”
The incident is said to have happened on 16 October 2006.
She also said Ms Barregon she was ‘aggressive’ towards a patient suffering from dementia.
Referring to an incident which took place on 24 October 2005, she said another nurse saw a woman, referred to as Patient H, in a distressed state after Ms Barregon spoke to her.
Miss Sommerville said the other nurse told her Ms Barregon “was very aggressive when dealing with the patient. She raised her voice, grated her teeth and invaded her space.”
After this Ms Barregon is said to have said she ‘didn’t care if a patient had dementia.’
Ms Sommerville told the hearing on several occasions Ms Barregon failed to record vital signs for patients, or recorded incorrect vital signs despite them not being on the ward at all.
Other complaints against the nurse include failing several times to record a patient’s “Glasgow Coma Scale”, a measure of consciousness.She is alleged to have called another staff member a ‘suicide bomber’ on 10 April 2007.
The hearing continues.
