Tribunal suspends nurse for failing to provide chaperoning for doctor

15 Feb 2019

A tribunal has suspended a nurse for failing to provide agreed chaperoning for a colleague.

The South Australian Health Practitioners Tribunal (the tribunal) has suspended Ms Brenda Moyle for two months for professional misconduct for failing to provide agreed chaperoning for a medical practitioner.

On 8 August 2012, Ms Moyle had undertaken with the Medical Board of Australia (Medical Board) to act as a chaperone for a medical practitioner at his consultations with female patients, while the practitioner was under investigation by the Medical Board relating to indecent assault charges.

On 23 September 2016, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), as the nursing regulator, referred Ms Moyle to the tribunal for breaching the chaperone undertaking.

Ms Moyle admitted that she breached the chaperone undertaking by not attending, or not remaining present in, consultations between the medical practitioner and female patients. Ms Moyle also admitted that she provided misleading chaperone logs to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and failed to communicate with AHPRA when she encountered difficulties in complying with the Chaperone Agreement.

The tribunal considered that the repeated breaches of the undertakings, which also involved falsification of entries, amounted to a grave departure from the high professional standard expected of an experienced registered nurse.

The tribunal reprimanded Ms Moyle, suspended her registration for two months and imposed conditions on her registration that she undertake further education on ethics and legal obligations in nursing. Ms Moyle was ordered to pay $2000 towards the NMBA’s costs.

The tribunal’s decision is published on the Austlii website.