Nurse banned for switching off monitoring alarm and scrolling phone before patient’s death
She also FaceTimed her family rather than carrying out observations on the 85-year-old, a tribunal finds
A nurse has been suspended after a patient died hours after she disconnected the telemetry alarm speaker on his and four other patients’ monitors.
During her shift, the nurse also spent more than an hour on her phone, including FaceTiming family overseas, rather than conducting regular observations, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal said.
The 85-year-old patient who died had been admitted to Nepean Private Hospital, in Sydney’s west, with renal and heart failure on 16 July 2021, and had an angiogram on 27 July 2021.
During her shift on 29 July the nurse was supposed to conduct six-hourly observations on the patient, the tribunal heard.
