A NURSE who left a patient in a soiled bed overnight and bullied a colleague has been struck off.
Linda McDonald, a nurse at Ayr Hospital told a shocked member of staff that a patient had “sh** himself overnight and I let the dirty b****** lie in it.”
Staff nurse Mrs McDonald also bullied a colleague at the hospital, taunting her by asking “is everyone you know dying?” soon after two close relatives had died.
Mrs McDonald also lied to her colleague that she had to repay £3,000 from her wages, leaving the nursing auxiliary in tears.
Handover
A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel found eight charges of misconduct proved.
The incident with “Patient A”, who suffered from feacal incontinence and was not named in the hearing, was discovered by colleagues during a shift handover in October 2009.
Another staff member told the NMC panel: “During the handover from the night staff, Staff Nurse McDonald told [us] that [Patient A] had been incontinent of faeces overnight, but she had “just let the dirty b****** lie in it.”
“Normally during a handover we get the run down of a patient’s progress”.
Mrs McDonald had not carried out any observations on the patient overnight, her colleague said.
She also told other staff on the night shift “let the bastard sit in his sh** and leave him.”
She also “ignored his care needs”, and took a three-and-a-half hour break the panel found.
Dying
In 2007, Mrs McDonald insensitively asked a nursing auxilliary at the hospital, named only as Ms Houston, if everyone she knew was dying.
Ms Houston told the panel in a witness statement: “In 2007, two of my close family members died in the space of three weeks.
“When I asked Staff Nurse McDonald for time off for bereavement leave her response was “Is everyone you know dying?”’.
Mrs McDonald also told a bizarre lie about Ms Houston’s wages which left the nursing auxiliary in tears.
Ms Houston told the panel: “Staff Nurse McDonald said that I had been overpaid by £3,000 and I had two weeks in which to pay it back.
“I phoned the Wages Department once Staff Nurse McDonald had left the ward and they knew nothing about it…
“Staff Nurse McDonald then told me it had been my mistake, a misunderstanding on my part.
“I just left her office and left it there, but being told this made me ill and I was unable to stop crying for a period of time afterwards”
Tragic
The panel noted: “Mrs McDonald has had a lengthy unblemished nursing career up until these allegations” and she had “tragic family circumstances.”
She was not present and not represented at the hearing, where all charges against her were found proved.
Announcing its decision to strike the nurse off, the panel in London said: “These basic errors, and in one instance the withholding of clinical care, put patients at serious risk of harm.
“There is also an element of bullying in this case, in that Mrs McDonald did not treat her colleagues with the respect that they deserved.”
